Summer 1993

An outstanding debut feature charting the emotional journey of a six-year old girl in the aftermath of her mother’s death in early 1990s Spain.

Frida (an extraordinary performance from Laia Artigas) is dealing with a grief she cannot process when she is packed off from her Barcelona home to live with her mother’s brother, his wife and their four-year old daughter in rural Catalonia. However, good intentions don’t always produce the desired result as Frida struggles to settle into a new family dynamic.

Spain has produced some of cinema’s most resonant child protagonists and there is something of the spirit of Saura’s Cría Cuervos and Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive in Carla Simón’s beautifully crafted film. Balancing an acute sense of place and time with a broader autobiographical slant, Summer 1993 is a distinctive film realised with heartfelt sensitivity and a keen sense of visual poetry.