Catalan Focus

Section

The Innocence

Summer in a small Spanish Mediterranean village... friends, fun, fiestas and a whole load of dreams just waiting to come true. Lis will never be the same again, in this coming-of-age dramedy.

Japanese Premiere

Screening Dates, Times, and Venues

Sep. 19 (土)19:30~
Nara City Naramachi Center Shimin Hall

Guest Talk Session After Screening

None

Online
Screening

Director:Lucia Alemany

  • Spain
  • 2019
  • 92min
  • Color
  • Catalan, Spanish
  • JPN & ENG Sub

Lucía grew up in the small town of Traiguera, Spain. Her debut film, La inocencia (2019), was selected for the ‘New Directors’ competition of 67º San Sebastián International Film Festival and won the Abycine Indie award. The project had been supported during its development stage by “La Incubadora – The Screen” of ECAM.

Director’s Statement

Lis’s dream of becoming a circus artist is linked to her need to escape from a small village and a family that keep her confined to a backward, old-fashioned world. An environment that is far to limited for the girl, which doesn’t offer her the necessary intimacy to develop as a person, attain mental maturity and find out who and what she wants to be in life.For me it was of key importance that the rural environment and atmosphere envisaged in Lis’s story should have a well-defined character of its own, very much in line with my vision of the place from which I myself fled to avoid becoming something I certainly did not want to be.

That same place I am talking about, my hometown, thus became the setting and location for THE INNOCENCE. It is there where Lis must confront the oppressive social atmosphere and patterns of thought that prevail and manifest themselves. In that secluded, small village the girl is like a fish out of water, a note out of tune, but she is also strong enough to take on the challenge, to face her fears, to move on, looking ahead towards a future away from that backward world. In her search for an outlet, an escape mechanism, she finds a “saviour” in her boyfriend Nestor. He too will eventually turn against her but that proves to be beneficial for Liz: by encouraging her to break some family rules, the girl’s attitude towards her parents changes and in due course she manages to shake them off her back and achieve her goal.

THE INNOCENCE is both the story about a girl and a description of a place, an environment and a location: a personal portrait of a small village of Valencia called Traiguera.

Director

Trailer