Las zapatillas de Laura
2009 · 13m · España
Directed by Óscar Bernàcer
Genres: coming-of-age, family, fantasy
Tones: surreal, tender, whimsical
Six-year-old Laura lives with her parents and older brother in an old central flat; one night at dinner her parents notice she is barefoot and make her go to her room for her slippers, and the long hallway unleashes her imagination and all her fears.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone wants to make a film about a child's inner world, but Bernàcer actually resists the cute-surrealism trap—there's a real weight to that hallway, a genuine dread that never tips into whimsy, and that's the move most directors chicken out on.
A assured exercise in spatial storytelling that recalls the domestic-fantasy lineage of Tarkovsky and contemporary European art cinema; the formal restraint in how the camera moves through that flat—what it reveals and withholds—is the film's true subject.
The decision to let the hallway stay mostly real, barely inflected with surrealism until the final moments, transforms what could've been a visual effects showcase into something genuinely unsettling—it's all in the pacing and sound design, and that choice elevates a minimal premise into something unforgettable.