La cruz
2012 · 10m · España
Directed by Alberto Evangelio
Genres: drama, fantasy, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
Vero learns to drive alongside the father she has not seen for years, until an unexpected event transports them to a sewer area known as La Cruz.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A coming-of-age reconciliation that refuses sentiment and instead yanks you into a sewer—literally—where intimacy and surrealism collide in a way that should feel ridiculous but doesn't, which is exactly why most programmers will miss it.
Evangelio's spatial grammar, the way he uses the driving sequences as formal counterpoint to the descent into La Cruz, demonstrates a deliberate lineage with magical realist cinema; the editing breath between the mundane and impossible stakes the film's thematic claim.
The film hinges on a single tonal pivot—the moment the ordinary road evaporates into something mythic—and Evangelio commits to it so quietly, with such restraint in the performance and sound design, that you believe a father and daughter can find each other in a place that doesn't exist.