To make matters worse, the fact that Celia is raised by a single mother - and doesn’t know who her father is - makes her the subject of her peers’ derision.īut Celia and her friends find their own avenues of rebellion, and Palomero captures their experiments - parties, makeup, cigarettes - with touching detail, neither trivializing nor sensationalizing the girls’ aspirations. She attends a strict Catholic convent where nuns teach young girls to smother their voices rather than risk being anything less than prim and perfect - a repressive pedagogy that the film’s opening strikingly literalizes, with a teacher instructing the less-accomplished singers in the school choir (including Celia) to silently lip-sync. Set in 1992 in the Spanish town of Zaragoza, the film follows 11-year-old Celia (Andrea Fandos) as she navigates the confusing terrain of early adolescence in an environment of stifling conservatism. Pilar Palomero’s debut feature is the kind of precise, naturalistic portrait of pubescent coming-of-age that might make you wince with recognition.
