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Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Romería' Review: A Budding Filmmaker Pursues Her Parents' Obscured Past in Carla Simón's Lovely, Pensive Coastal Voyage
'Romería' is the Spanish word for pilgrimage, ostensibly a clear and apt title for the third feature by writer-director Carla Simón. Based on travels the filmmaker herself undertook as a teenager to meet an extended family she had never known, this is a kind of road movie by sea, journeying in pursuit of some sense of self-completion. Yet as the film wends its way through the narrow streets, harbors and glittering waters of Spain's salty Galician coastline, immersing itself in chaotic gatherings of family and community, the title's spiritual aspect takes on a rueful irony. There's no holy destination or revelation here, and certainly no warm sense of homecoming — though in finding where she doesn't belong, Simón's fictional alter ego can at last make sense of her own fragmented childhood memories, and those she's retrieved from her late biological parents. After the expansive sociological study of her sophomore feature 'Alcarràs,' winner of the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlinale, Simón's latest sees her returning to the expressly autobiographical territory of her 2017 debut 'Summer 1993.' Once again processing her grief and lingering disorientation in the wake of both her parents' AIDS-related deaths in the early 1990s, the new film is not a direct sequel to 'Summer 1993' — her avatars are differently named and characterized in each — but does gracefully extend its predecessor's depiction of early childhood trauma to the tremulous brink of adulthood. No knowledge of Simón's life or previous work is required, however, to be drawn into this layered, wistfully moving memory piece, which is sure to further boost her rising arthouse profile after premiering in competition at Cannes. More from Variety 'My Father's Shadow' Producer Funmbi Ogunbanwo Headlines Inaugural African Producers Accelerator Program (EXCLUSIVE) Mórbido TV and Screen Capital Unveil Umbra, a Genre-First Streaming Hub for the LatAm Market (EXCLUSIVE) Valeria Golino on Her Chemistry With Matilda De Angelis in Mario Martone's 'Fuori': 'We Were Really Lucky to Fall in Love' We're now in the summer of 2004, and 18-year-old cinephile Marina (Llúcia Garcia) is freshly graduated from high school and preparing to study filmmaking in Barcelona — with the aid of a scholarship for which she's still missing some essential paperwork. Required, for arcane bureaucratic reasons, is a notarized recognition of kinship from her paternal grandparents, who have never acknowledged or communicated with Marina in the years since her father died, leaving her to be raised by adoptive parents. That entails traveling all the way across the country to the city of Vigo on the edge of the Atlantic, where she's met by her genial uncle Lois (Tristán Ulloa) and a loud gaggle of cousins, who in turn ferry her to the grandparental home — though not before a languid day's sailing and swimming around the picturesque Cíes Islands, where Marina's parents spent their own youth frolicking. Marina's loose, camcorder-shot video diary of her trip is often laid over narrated extracts from her mother's journal written some 20-odd years before — which detail her ambitions, insecurities and moments of bliss in her itinerant relationship with Alfonso, Marina's father, as they drift around the same shores their daughter is now exploring for the first time. The paralleling of these twin accounts serves, among other things, to show how far Marina's path has diverged from that of the parents who never got to see her grow up: Where they were reckless, restless, increasingly drug-dependent hedonists, she's a quiet observer of life, reserved and straightedge, bemused by the rowdy antics of her oldest cousin Nuno (mononymous actor Mitch) and his cohort. Yet while the family, in all its whirling, garrulous energy, appears outwardly welcoming to the newcomer, Marina soon encounters limits to their acceptance. Her grandmother (Marina Troncoso) is haughty and openly hostile, asking only why it's taken her this long to visit, and while her grandfather (José Ángel Egido) is friendlier, he'd rather pay her off generously than sign any forms legally binding them. Marina's young cousins, meanwhile, ask if she's ill, since they've been told never to touch her blood: The disease that killed her parents remains a source of stigmatized shame in the family, and her presence is a discomfiting reminder of it. Through conversations with various relatives, Marina learns from their conflicting accounts how fundamental facts of her parents' lives have been kept secret from her: Childhood memories are revised in real time, and her sense of self is thrown in flux. As in her previous features, Simón's filmmaking is warmly tactile and attuned to both human movement and geographic texture. Her first collaboration with world cinema super-DP Hélène Louvart feels entirely natural, the camera mobile but breezily unhurried as it weaves through heaving domestic spaces or around the rusted, characterful cityscape of Vigo, drinking in the milky sunlight and long afternoon shadows, but never resorting to postcard compositions. A slight swerve into daydreamy magical realism in the film's second half comes as a surprise from Simón, though it's grounded in purpose, serving as a bridge from Marina's self-shot evocation of her parents' youth to direct, grainy, unprettified flashbacks to days of hanging out, shooting up and making love. Thus do we become privy to sensory flashes outside our protagonist's perspective, from trippy nights on the titles in 1980s punk clubs to a tangle of leathery seaweed and tattooed limbs during one beachside embrace. Simón's sweetly sorrowful ode to lost family imagines what might have been, while acknowledging that not all memories can be passed down between generations — some die deliciously with us. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mórbido TV and Screen Capital Unveil Umbra, a Genre-First Streaming Hub for the LatAm Market (EXCLUSIVE)
Chilean investment firm Screen Capital has acquired Versatile Communications Inc. to launch the region's first multi-platform hub dedicated entirely to horror and fantasy content. With an initial $2.5 million investment from Screen Capital's Screen II Fund, the initiative marks a pioneering venture into specialized genre content with global ambitions. Eduardo Caso, an industry vet and the driving force behind the popular Mórbido TV channel, is at the heart of this new endeavor. 'The fantasy and horror genre is among the most diverse in terms of subgenres worldwide, and it boasts a highly loyal audience. Once people become fans, they tend to remain deeply engaged,' he tells Variety of the new initiative's inspirations. 'In Latin America, there is strong demand for this type of content, yet production and distribution remain limited. This gap presents a significant opportunity to boost regional development in the genre, especially with the support of Screen Capital's investors. Together with [Morbido Group CEO] Pablo Guisa, we have been developing this idea for years, and now we finally have the chance to bring it to life.' More from Variety Valeria Golino on Her Chemistry With Matilda De Angelis in Mario Martone's 'Fuori': 'We Were Really Lucky to Fall in Love' Jodie Foster Says She Was Offered Lead Roles in French Films Before 'Vie Privée' but Was 'Too Scared': The Dialogue 'Was a Huge Challenge for Me' Karan Johar and Neeraj Ghaywan on Star Kids, Martin Scorsese and Their Cannes Selection 'Homebound': 'Living a Cinematic Dream' The new venture's centerpiece is the creation of Umbra, a horror and fantasy content ecosystem that will include a FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) channel, AVOD (Advertising-based Video on Demand), SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) and the linear Mórbido TV channel. Subscribers will gain access to a comprehensive catalog, including classic films, original productions, series, podcasts, audiobooks and experimental formats. The move also marks a significant expansion of Mórbido TV Entertainment SpA, now headquartered in Chile, where the company will oversee global operations focused on talent development, project acquisition and regional distribution. 'For Screen Capital, it is very attractive to be able to enter a market that we had not explored before but that we know has a high engagement among regional audiences,' says Edgar Spielmann, partner at Screen Capital and incoming board member for the new venture. 'Although it is considered a niche, the numbers are surprising, and it is one of the types of specialized content with the best performance in the region.' Screen Capital, co-founded by Joyce Zylberberg and Tatiana Emden, is known for backing ventures that fuse technology and entertainment. The acquisition of Versatile Communications is the first investment from the Screen II Fund, which specifically targets such innovative intersections. Mórbido's strong market positioning is further enhanced by partnerships with Grupo Mórbido, Mantícora Distribución and the Fantastic Pavilion of the Marché du Film at the Cannes Film Festival. These strategic alliances will feed into an exclusive and continuously refreshed content pipeline. The initiative is targeting a lucrative demographic: adults aged 25–44 from upper-middle-class backgrounds, who demonstrate long-term loyalty and a willingness to consume horror and fantasy content across multiple formats. With this investment, Screen Capital and Mórbido TV aim to transform the Umbra brand into Latin America's premier destination for horror and fantasy, setting new benchmarks in genre content distribution and creative development. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Homebound' Review: A Moving Friendship Drama Set Against a Politically Fractured India
Neeraj Ghaywan's 'Homebound' is the first time in ages that a mainstream Hindi-language production has felt vital — at least since Ghaywan's own 'Masaan,' which premiered at Cannes 10 years ago. A drama in which aspirations collide with harsh political realities, its tale of impoverished young men trying to escape their circumstances proves to be both a moving character piece, as well as a searing indictment of modern India. The stage is set when lifelong best friends Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa) — a Muslim and a Dalit, respectively — board a crowded train to a nearby city. They, along with countless other disenfranchised youths, hope to gain access to a handful of increasingly exclusive government jobs, as their only means of making a decent living. In Shoaib and Chandan's case, they hope to become police trainees, under the optimistic belief that the official uniform will render them immune to discrimination based on religion and caste. However, soon after this prologue, an entire year passes without an official answer, leaving them in social and financial limbo. More from Variety 'Romería' Review: A Budding Filmmaker Pursues Her Parents' Obscured Past in Carla Simón's Lovely, Pensive Coastal Voyage 'My Father's Shadow' Producer Funmbi Ogunbanwo Headlines Inaugural African Producers Accelerator Program (EXCLUSIVE) Mórbido TV and Screen Capital Unveil Umbra, a Genre-First Streaming Hub for the LatAm Market (EXCLUSIVE) The duo's domestic lives, in their tiny North Indian village, are sketched with vivid physical and emotional hues, denoting their generational plight. For the gruff, outgoing Shoaib, a job and money are a matter of urgency, given his disabled father's impending knee surgery, until which he can't work in the fields. The more reserved and simmering Chandan hopes to earn enough money to build his parents a concrete house, so his mother doesn't have to work. Both young men also harbor a sense of yearning: Shoaib wants to stay close to home, near the sights, fragrances, and people he knows, while Chandan begins attending college as he waits, if only for the sake of his crush, the similarly lower caste but slightly more well-to-do Sudha (Jhanvi Kapoor). Shoaib and Chandan start out as a playful pair, but their struggle to find work leads to increasing frustrations, driving a wedge between them. Khatter and Jethwa put on immensely endearing and unpredictable performances. Unfortunately, unlike her 'Dhadak' co-star Khatter, Kapoor (who was similarly raised in the Hindi film industry) hasn't yet learned to shed the enunciations and gestures that suggest someone who was raised in a major city, surrounded by wealth. This makes Sudha's dynamic with Chandan play like the kind of inter-class or inter-caste romance typical of Indian dramas, despite what's actually intended. However, this disconnect is limited to only a handful of scenes, since Kapoor's role is truncated to the point of feeling perfunctory. It's the movie's only major flaw, but it works in its favor, allowing the leading duo the lion's share of the runtime. 'Homebound' is built in the vein of a traditional Bollywood social drama, which is to say it contains broad political statements delivered practically down the lens, but its leads inject this otherwise obvious cinematic form with moving, naturalistic nuance. Where some of the dialogue is overt, other exchanges tease hidden details that slowly reveal themselves over time, like the way Chandan hesitates to introduce himself with his full name, lest he be judged on his social standing. Shoaib, ever the romantic about what the two of them are owed as human beings, chastises Chandan for not embracing his identity, and the advantages that come with quotas for the oppressed, even if it means embracing the scorn of conspiracy theorists. Ghaywan and cinematographer Pratik Shah's roving camera captures the boys' surroundings with a poetic soft focus, enhancing their idealistic discussions about their birthrights as Indians, and the constitutional privileges they're casually denied. The law says one thing, while the dehumanizing gaze of upper-caste Hindu officials says another. All these conflicts build atop each other en route to a major turn that's not quite a 'twist,' but a surprising reveal about the movie's proximity to recent events, which brings its title into focus. For this pivot to fully land, the film needs to lay a solid emotional foundation, which it does with incredible deftness and dramatic balance. Shoaib and Chandan share a friendship so realistic that any disagreement between them hurts. On the other hand, any fleeting gesture of affection or vulnerability — like Chandan standing in Shoaib's path during an Islamophobic assault — makes love practically radiate through the screen. What's valuable about the pair's camaraderie is that it's a gentle note played against the harsh orchestral assault of India's fractured political milieu, which trickles down through every social fabric, until navigating daily life and simple conversations means swallowing indignities. The most riveting turns in 'Homebound' are distinctly personal. But given the movie's careful construction, they radiate outwards and latch on to systemic failings with a sense of righteousness. It's a film of great tragedy, but one so rooted in beating humanity that you can't help but be left furious, in addition to teary-eyed. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
