Una luz en Nochebuena
2023 · 18m · España
Directed by Óscar Parra de Carrizosa
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Christmas Eve, 1992. Luis José and his friend Antonio have spent the day trying to find mushrooms for dinner in the Segovia mountains. But that night, something will change their lives forever.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise reads like a setup for conventional rural mysticism, but Parra de Carrizosa seems to know that and refuses to deliver the expected payload—the real subversion is in what *doesn't* happen, which is braver and more unsettling than any twist.
There's a deliberate formalism here that recalls the Spanish mountain-set tradition of introspection (Erice's fingerprints are visible), and the restraint in not over-explaining the nocturnal shift shows a screenwriter and director in conversation with a measured, almost classical discipline.
The decision to hold the camera on the ordinary—mushrooms, mountains, two friends—and let the threat materialize through sound design and the actors' micro-reactions rather than spectacle is what transforms an 18-minute setup into something that feels inevitable and complete.