Time After Time
2014 · 16m · España
Directed by Pablo Silva González, Peris Romano
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, romance
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Year 1985: Pablo has been in love with his friend Susana practically all his life; she is the prototype of a popular girl, but she is not at all dumb, and after inviting her to the cinema for the umpteenth time, it ends in an unexpected way with him parking his father's car in a vacant lot on the outskirts of the city.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A tender coming-of-age romance set in 1985—so far, so conventional—but González and Romano refuse the expected catharsis, instead parking the whole thing in a vacant lot and letting ambiguity do the heavy lifting. It's a small act of subversion that quietly dismantles the genre.
Shot through with a melancholic patience that recalls the Spanish New Wave's interest in duration and restraint, this film understands that adolescent longing isn't dramatic—it's sustained, almost architectural in its construction of unfulfilled desire.
The power lives in that final parking lot scene: a single compositional and narrative choice that reframes everything preceding it, turning a straightforward romantic gesture into something fractured and real, all on what must have been a shoestring budget.