Regresivo
2021 · 13m · España
Directed by Jose Maria Tros de ilarduya
Genres: drama, experimental, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A young man steps outside to find himself alone in a large neighbourhood of skyscrapers and, disoriented, wanders streets and parks as sounds and events from his childhood appear to him as tormenting visions.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Tros de ilarduya does something genuinely strange here—childhood hauntings aren't usually this formally austere, which is exactly why the film's refusal to manipulate you emotionally actually hits harder than expected.
The film sits comfortably in the lineage of European psychogeographic cinema, particularly the Catalan experimental tradition, with controlled compositions that let architectural emptiness do the psychological work.
The decision to keep the protagonist mostly silent and let sound design carry the entire emotional register—those fractured childhood voices overlapping the urban soundscape—transforms what could be maudlin into something genuinely disorienting and precise.