Romería
A young woman’s search for official documents for a university scholarship uncovers long-buried family secrets.
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.
The film had its world premiere in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Following her Golden Bear–winning “Alcarràs”, Spanish auteur Carla Simón returns to the semi-autobiographical roots of “Summer 1993” 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.”
Carla Simón (1986) grew up in a Catalan village called Les Planes d’Hostoles. She graduated in Audiovisual Communication at the Universitat Autònoma in Barcelona after spending a year studying at the University of California. She then studied on a TV Fiction course organised by Catalan Television and subsequently at the London Film School. Her short films have screened at numerous festivals. She participated in Berlinale Talents in 2015 where the screenplay for her debut feature film “Summer 1993” was selected for the Script Station. It later became a debut feature film of the same name, which was a huge international success and was also shown at the PÖFF. Simón’s sophomore second feature, “Alcarràs” (2022), won the Golden Bear at the 72nd Berlinale, becoming the first Catalan-language film to do so. The film was also selected as the Spanish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards. “Romería” is her third full length feature film.
Filmography:
Estiu 1993 (Suvi 1993, PÖFF 2017), Alcarràs (PÖFF 2022), Romería (2025)