La Ola (The Wave)

After making his last three films in English, Sebastián Lelio returns to Chile for his ninth feature—the country where he also shot his Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman (2017). With La Ola, he draws from recent history, when the Chilean feminist movement gained momentum and students took to the streets en masse to denounce abuse and hypocrisy within the universities. Lelio channels the energy of that moment into an ambitious musical. Music student Julia (Daniela López) chants passionately for change, even as she struggles with the trauma of sexual violence in her own life. In La Ola (“The Wave”), outrage and determination rise like a tide, and that force becomes unstoppable. With driving beats and a sharp sense of self-awareness, Lelio delivers a celebration of sisterhood in the face of systemic failure.