Abismo
2018 · 7m · España
Directed by Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, LGBTQ+
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
In its five minutes, 'Abismo' projects how a teenage woman feels when she realises she has fallen in love with a girl — the fear and insecurity generated by loving in a socially forbidden way.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a competent coming-of-age story about queer awakening—sincere, well-intentioned, exactly what you'd expect. The melancholy is earned but the formal choices don't push back against the premise; it submits to it rather than interrogating what forbidden love actually feels like from the inside.
Gutiérrez Arrieta positions herself in a clear lineage of tender, introspective queer cinema, and the film's restraint—its refusal to dramatize or spectacularize—feels deliberate and respectful of that tradition. The contemplative pacing demonstrates real formal control.
The specificity lives in how the sound design isolates the interior—muffled ambient world, heartbeat-close breathing, that one moment where the girl's hand trembles—turning a seven-minute runtime into something that feels excavated rather than summarized.