Space Mountain
2018 · 14m · España
Directed by Víctor Nores
Genres: adventure, coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, tender
Her parents' separation prevents Paula from celebrating her seventh birthday as a family, so she decides to escape and travel four hundred kilometres to reunite with her father.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a road movie about a kid chasing her dad, which sounds like every Sundance premiere from the last decade—except Nores trades maudlin family-drama beats for something stranger, letting the journey itself become the point rather than the reconciliation. Doesn't quite break enough to stick, but it's got the right instinct to ignore what you're supposed to feel.
A formally restrained coming-of-age that understands the grammar of absence: the film moves with Paula's small, determined body through landscape and time, and the emotional architecture hinges on what Nores chooses not to show us about her parents. The control is remarkable—every shot earns its tenderness.
The entire film pivots on a single, devastating decision: Nores shoots Paula's solitary journey in long, unbroken takes that let her smallness against the landscape do the emotional work, trusting silence and movement over dialogue—a formal choice that transforms a familiar premise into something that actually *breathes*.