The heat wave (La ola de calor)
2015 · 18m · Luxemburgo
Directed by Lucía Valverde
A comedy about Europe and its clichés follows a German-Spanish couple living in Luxembourg during a heat wave, when the father-in-law visits for the first time.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A heat wave as pretext for deconstructing European identity politics through in-law awkwardness—it's both utterly silly and genuinely subversive, the kind of premise that makes you groan until you realize the joke is on everyone's nationalist assumptions.
Valverde's satirical setup sits squarely in the European comedy-of-manners tradition, though the film's formal restraint and wry observation of cultural friction feel more measured than the premise initially promises.
The real lift here is the choice to make the heat wave itself the antagonist rather than backdrop—that specific decision to let climate discomfort become the engine for both comedy and character reveal elevates what could've been a generic family comedy into something with teeth.