Libertad

The Vidal family has decided to reunite after a long time in their summer house in La Costa Brava to spend a “last summer” with their grandmother Angela, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. For the first time in her life, Nora, 14, can’t find her place in the family dynamics. She is too old to play with the kids but she doesn’t belong with the adults either. Everything changes when Libertad arrives. She’s the teenage daughter of Rosana, 35, the Colombian caregiver who works for the family, taking care of Angela.

Rebellious and beautiful, Libertad becomes Nora’s only source of excitement and adventure, and the two girls quickly form a dangerous and uneven friendship. Libertad opens a door to the unknown desires and the promise of freedom of adulthood, but also forces Nora to get out of the bubble of privilege she has always lived in, making her discover a whole new side of the Costa Brava.

When the friendship between Nora and Libertad starts to push Nora away from her family, her mother pulls her apart from Libertad, arguing that she is a bad influence for her. The forced separation between the girls makes the class differences more obvious, and Libertad starts resenting Nora for the privileges she never had. Nora sees her world falling apart as her mother disappoints her and Libertad decides to escape without her. Nora will do everything in her hand to prevent her from leaving, but as the summer comes to an end, their destinies will prevail.

“Clara Roquet’s eloquent first feature captures the quicksilver charge of an intense bond that develops and dissolves between reserved 15 year-old Nora (María Morera) and Libertad (Nicolle García), the stroppy, self-sufficient daughter of Nora’s grandmother’s maid. But for a while at least, they’re inseparable. Roquet’s intimately textured filmmaking captures not just the hot and cold currents of sentiment between the girls, but how all-consuming and all-important it feels to the sheltered Nora. Roquet’s filmmaking is light of touch and instinctively perceptive.” - Screen Daily