Rocío and Me
2022 · 11m · Spain
Directed by Louise Monlaü
Genres: documentary, family, sports
Tones: contemplative, tender
A 29-year-old woman with Down syndrome and her mother — both named Rocío — navigate caregiving and independence, finding solace with a synchronized-swimming team of athletes with Down syndrome.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects a tearjerker when you put Down syndrome and caregiving in the same sentence, so Monlaü just... doesn't give it to you—instead she lets the synchronized swimmers steal every frame and makes you realize the entire emotional architecture was inverted from the start.
A formally precise observation of the documentary tradition's best impulse: to witness dignity without commentary, structured around the grammar of the pool itself as both literal and metaphorical space.
The decision to center the synchronized-swimming sequences—those perfect, mirrored bodies in water—as the emotional core rather than the mother-daughter domestic scenes is what makes this work; it's where Monlaü trusts the image over the expected narrative beat.