La Hostia
2018 · 4m · España
Directed by Mario Suárez
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic
Miguel, a young man with many problems and a head in turmoil, decides to seek redemption from the one person who will listen to him, even if by force: his neighbourhood priest.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A kid corners a priest to confess his way out of existential chaos—it's the inverse of every redemption narrative you've seen, funny and queasy in exactly the way consensus taste avoids. Four minutes of someone weaponizing faith against the one person supposed to dispense it.
The film understands its place in a lineage of Spanish cinema grappling with faith and moral fracture, and the formal restraint—a single location, confessional framing—lets that weight settle without melodrama.
The choice to play Miguel's monologue as both desperate and performative, never quite letting us know if he's sincere or performing sincerity, is the hinge that makes this whole thing work—one tonal decision that reframes what redemption means.