Conexión
2019 · 12m · España
Directed by Natalia Tenaguillo
Genres: coming-of-age, family
Tones: contemplative, tender
On holiday at their grandmother's house, little Nora tries everything to get her older brother Sam to play with her, but he makes it as hard as he can.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise reads like a Hallmark setup—sibling bonding at grandma's house—but Tenaguillo refuses the easy catharsis, letting the rejection linger without redemption. It's almost perverse how little the film needs to say to make you feel the sting of being ignored.
A formally composed study in negative space and glances, positioned squarely in the lineage of Pialat and the Dardenne brothers' intimate family cinema; the restraint is architectural, each withheld moment a deliberate structural choice.
The film lives entirely in Nora's physical persistence—how she follows Sam, how her body occupies the frame differently each time he rebuffs her—and that single choice of never cutting away from her longing transforms a simple story into something quietly devastating.