Based loosely on writer/director Carla Simón’s own search to discover something about her deceased parents’ lives in 1980’s Spain, Romería is a fascinating story of family secrets, half-truths, and the issues arising for Spain after Franco.
It’s 2004, and in order to apply for a university scholarship, Marina (Llúcia Garcia) is in need of documents pertaining to her biological parents, both of whom died when she was a baby in the mid 1980’s. Leaving her adoptive family in Barcelona, she arrives in Vigo – a port on the west coast of Spain where her father’s siblings and parents live – in order to clarify matters.
In addition to finding new family connections, she is also faced with a number of versions of events from 20 years ago, and finds it difficult to know what to believe. Everyone seems to have a different reason to protect their version of the truth.
What transpires is not only the truth that Marina decides is the one she chooses to accept, but also a commentary on a country which, following the end of Franco’s dictatorship, saw a move into more openness, and with it a massive increase in drug and AIDS-related deaths.
Llúcia Garcia makes her acting debut in Romería and is extremely sure-footed as the young woman who doesn’t quite know who or what to believe anymore. There are long sequences (around the family dinner table, for example) where there is a lot going on but she sits in silence, watching everyone tell their truth in turn, while we feel that she is weighing things up internally. The outcome of her decision is somewhat unexpected, and marks a tone shift in the final third in which a couple of the actors play two roles as past meets present.
With a selection of garrulous aunts, uncles and cousins dominating most situations, Romería (a word used in southern Spain to mean a spiritual journey or pilgrimage) is full of half-truths, sometimes lies, and a few twists
Romería plays in the Love strand of London Film Festival 2025.
Based loosely on writer/director Carla Simón’s own search to discover something about her deceased parents’ lives in 1980’s Spain, Romería is a fascinating story of family secrets, half-truths, and the issues arising for Spain after Franco.
It’s 2004, and in order to apply for a university scholarship, Marina (Llúcia Garcia) is in need of documents pertaining to her biological parents, both of whom died when she was a baby in the mid 1980’s. Leaving her adoptive family in Barcelona, she arrives in Vigo – a port on the west coast of Spain where her father’s siblings and parents live – in order to clarify matters.
In addition to finding new family connections, she is also faced with a number of versions of events from 20 years ago, and finds it difficult to know what to believe. Everyone seems to have a different reason to protect their version of the truth.
What transpires is not only the truth that Marina decides is the one she chooses to accept, but also a commentary on a country which, following the end of Franco’s dictatorship, saw a move into more openness, and with it a massive increase in drug and AIDS-related deaths.
Llúcia Garcia makes her acting debut in Romería and is extremely sure-footed as the young woman who doesn’t quite know who or what to believe anymore. There are long sequences (around the family dinner table, for example) where there is a lot going on but she sits in silence, watching everyone tell their truth in turn, while we feel that she is weighing things up internally. The outcome of her decision is somewhat unexpected, and marks a tone shift in the final third in which a couple of the actors play two roles as past meets present.
With a selection of garrulous aunts, uncles and cousins dominating most situations, Romería (a word used in southern Spain to mean a spiritual journey or pilgrimage) is full of half-truths, sometimes lies, and a few twists
Romería plays in the Love strand of London Film Festival 2025.
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