Gloria y Candela
2021 · 17m · España
Directed by Alicia Arwgar
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Two elderly women bound by a shared past and a draining illness drift apart as Gloria clings to fragments of their youth together, until a final shared dance gives her a brief moment of freedom and remembrance.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects the tender queer elegy, so Arwgar gives you exactly that—which is precisely why it doesn't land for me; the film knows its own emotional beats too well, and there's nothing here that fights back against what we're supposed to feel.
A formally assured study in how cinema holds time: the editing resists easy catharsis, the performance choices honor restraint, and that final dance sequence understands something essential about how cinema lets bodies remember what language cannot.
The decision to keep the camera still during the dance—letting Arwgar choreograph the frame rather than chase it—is what transforms a gentle premise into something that actually breathes; everything else serves that one choice.