Grushenka
2017 · 22m · España
Directed by Luis Ortas
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, tender
David starts a first year of high school in a newly established democracy and meets a literature teacher who assigns Dostoevsky, Camus and Kafka. Reading opens a world where friendship, sex and betrayal shape an unforgettable year.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A high schooler reads Dostoevsky and his life gets complicated—sure, it's the oldest coming-of-age move in the book, literally. But Ortas commits to it without winking, which is either bold or naive, and I'm genuinely unsure which yet.
Grushenka positions itself deliberately in a lineage of literary-awakening narratives, and the formal restraint here—allowing Dostoevsky and Camus to do the philosophical heavy lifting rather than the camera—suggests a filmmaker confident enough in tradition to inhabit it rather than subvert it.
The decision to let the books themselves become the dramatic architecture, rather than illustrating their themes, is what makes this work; Ortas trusts that a single moment of a student's face closing around an idea carries more weight than any scene of rebellion or romance could.