Nuestro viejo (y el mar)
2017 · 30m · España
Directed by Lander Camarero
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic
After seven months of hell at sea, two brothers manage to reach the Chatham Islands in New Zealand waters, exactly on the opposite side of the world to the River Lea, the Biscayan river where their dead father wanted his ashes to rest. There, at the back of the world, they scatter his ashes in a brief ceremony full of hate and rancour.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The setup—two brothers, seven months of suffering, a father's ashes, and the ocean as antagonist—sounds like prestige drama boilerplate, but Camarero flips it by making the ceremony itself a site of rage rather than catharsis; that's the kind of tonal sabotage most festivals would sand down.
A formally precise elegy that positions itself in the lineage of maritime cinema and the family-reckoning short, where geographical distance becomes emotional distance; the restraint in staging the final ash-scattering ceremony—refusing easy sentiment—marks Camarero's command of cinematic restraint.
The decision to frame the father's absence through the brothers' antagonism toward each other rather than toward his memory is the hinge that makes this work; it's a small reorientation that transforms a 30-minute piece from familiar grief narrative into something about siblings and irreconcilable need.