Marina (Llúcia Garcia), an orphan from a young age, has just turned 18 and intends to pursue a university scholarship in Barcelona. The application, however, requires the signatures of her paternal grandparents, which means that she must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast and seek out the family she has never met. With her mother’s old diary as her only guide, Marina returns to her parents’ hometown of Vigo, where she finds herself caught in a confusing swirl of new experiences, buried emotions, and fragmented memories.
Following her Golden Bear–winning Alcarràs (VIFF 2022), Spanish auteur Carla Simón returns to the semi-autobiographical roots of Summer 1993 (VIFF 17) with this imaginative film about the vicissitudes of time and memory. Titled after the Spanish word for pilgrimage, Romería renders Marina’s coming-of-age journey through a sensuous array of textures and modes, interweaving scenes of family drama with a lo-fi video diary and flights into the fantastic. It’s a film that lies suspended between the mystery of what was and visions of what might have been.
Llúcia Garcia, Mitch, Tristán Ulloa, Alberto Gracia, Miryam Gallego, Janet Novás
Spain/Germany
2025
In Spanish, Catalan, French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Producer
María Zamora
Screenwriter
Carla Simón
Cinematography
Hélène Louvart
Editor
Sergio Jiménez, Ana Pfaff
Production Design
Mónica Bernuy
Original Music
Ernest Pipó
Carla Simón
Carla Simón, born 1986, is a screenwriter and film director who grew up in a small Catalan village. Her autobiographical debut Verano 1993 (2017) won the Best First Film Award and Generation Kplus Grand Prix at Berlinale, as well as three Goya Awards, including Best New Director. The film represented Spain at the 2018 Oscars, earned a Discovery nomination at the European Film Awards, and earned Simón the Kering emerging Women in Motion award at Cannes. Her second feature film, Alcarràs (2022), won the coveted Golden Bear at the Berlinale and was selected for more than 90 international film festivals.
Filmography: Summer 1993 (2017); Alcarràs (2022)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
VIFF+ Members' Early Bird Day Screening: Late Fame
Join us at the VIFF Centre on August 6 for a free VIFF+ members-only screening of Late Fame! Catch up with your fellow cinema fans and hear from VIFF's Director of Programming. Not a member? You can join now!
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World
Sasha Waters' documentary takes us through the life of America's best-selling late twentieth century poet, a private woman who shared her innermost thoughts and made them indispensable.
Crash
Sex drive, David Cronenberg-style. The car-crash fetishists who orbit Cronenberg's metrosexual Toronto (they include James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Deborah Unger) obsessively seek a fusion of metal and flesh... Fender bender as the ultimate orgasm.
