With Romería, released in theaters on April 8, Carla Simón continues her deeply personal filmmaking, drawing on her own life story but always open to a broader historical perspective. Her third feature film follows Marina, a young adopted woman who sets out to find her biological family to obtain an administrative document. From this concrete step gradually emerges a much deeper investigation into her missing parents, the lies surrounding their deaths, and a Spain still scarred by the ravages of HIV and heroin.
A family quest built upon absences
The film unfolds in fragments, following Marina's encounters with a family she barely knows and who find it difficult to talk about the past. In the press kit, Carla Simón explains that family relationships fascinate her because "we don't choose them," adding that, in her case, these bonds "had to be constructed." This idea permeates the entire narrative: here, family is anything but straightforward; it is riddled with unspoken words, shame, and incomplete memories.
The mother's diary then becomes an essential thread. It allows Marina to piece together part of her story, without ever filling all the gaps. The director herself states this in the press kit: she attempted to reconstruct her parents' story, without managing to reach a complete truth. Romería rightly acknowledges this impossibility. The film does not claim to heal the wounds; on the contrary, it shows what it means to grow up with shadows, and then try to confront them. One of the film's most powerful gestures lies precisely in this: waiting until almost the end to finally pronounce the word "AIDS," without hesitation or euphemism.
An intimate memory that also becomes political
Through this family narrative, Carla Simón also delves into a collective history that has long been largely ignored. In the press kit, she points out that in Spain, the history of HIV has remained closely linked to the heroin crisis, much more so than in other countries where the epidemic was initially associated with different social realities. Her film revisits this generation swept away by injectable drugs, illness, and premature deaths that many families have never truly been able to name. She emphasizes that “a great deal of guilt and taboo” still persists, and that this past has often been unable to be properly narrated.
The film is so moving precisely because it never judges. The accompanying text emphasizes this approach to addressing both addiction and AIDS without moral oversimplification. By following Marina through turbulent family meals, memories that resurface with difficulty, and images of the Atlantic coast, Romería shows a memory in the process of being reconstructed. Cinema then becomes a tool for this reconstruction. Carla Simón poses the question: “Can we fabricate our own memories when they don’t exist?” The film’s beauty lies in this discreet yet persistent answer: yes, the imagination can help us reclaim a lost history.
Born in 1986, Carla Simón has established herself in just a few years as one of the leading voices of Spanish auteur cinema. After the highly acclaimed Summer of 93, and then Our Suns, winner of the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival according to available information, she confirms with Romería a remarkably coherent body of work centered on childhood, the passing down of traditions, and the fallibility of memory. The film also marks the screen debut of Llúcia García in the lead role, a young actress whose dialogue highlights her precision and presence. With her, Carla Simón delivers a film of mourning, truth, and healing, both deeply personal and imbued with a collective history that has remained in the shadows for far too long.
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