Reinas
2021 · 5m · España
Directed by Guillermo Fernández
Genres: coming-of-age, crime, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tense
Two girls have just escaped from prison; after a long run they begin to reconsider whether they really want to go back or not, one of them convinced that it is the best thing to do, and the other with more doubts.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The prison-escape setup promises transgression, but Reinas is more interested in the moral vertigo *after* the break than the break itself—which is either clever subversion or a missed chance to actually upset anyone, depending on your mood.
Fernández inherits the contemplative fugitive tradition of European art cinema while resisting its tendency toward mythologizing; the film's restraint in staging and sound design sits in careful dialogue with its melodramatic premise.
What elevates this five-minute sprint is the precise moment when one girl's certainty about return collides with the other's doubt—it's all in the stillness between them, a single editorial breath that transforms a genre setup into genuine psychological complexity on almost no budget.