Libertad

Like when you make excuses for your bigot parents because "they don't really mean it".

An innocent, rich, European teenager wants to befriend her Colombian maid's poor, immoral daughter and if wishes were clichés, they'd all come true in this movie.

Libertad is a street wise fifteen year-old whose mother is caretaker and housekeeper for a wealthy family in Spain. Her sassy daughter befriends the naive Nora, an entitled kid with a grandmother with Alzheimer's. The story concerns the antics of the girls and sad decline of the grandmother. The cast is fine and the story interesting enough but overall just a telenovella.

The summers of adolescence are moments of intense life, which often mark fates forever. Adolescence concentrates learning , revolutionizing habits and certainties. Weeks of unexpected transition, between the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood. This is what fifteen-year-old Nora (Maria Morera) experiences when Libertad bursts into her life. The first is the daughter of a wealthy family that occupies a beautiful holiday home by the sea, on the Catalan Costa Brava. The second is the daughter of the Colombian maid, Rosana (Carol Hurtado). Nora's quiet life is turned upside down when, during her summer holidays, this naive 15-year old comes across Libertad (Nicolle García). Her mother takes care of the women of the villa led by Teresa (Nora Navas) and dominated by the elderly grandmother, Angela (Vicky Peña) who suffers Alzheimer illness . This new, intense friendship between the two utterly different girls will guide them towards adolescence. It is in the microcosm of this small feminine world, which functions very well without men, that Nora's perspective changes. In contact with the newcomer, awareness arises about her loved ones, about her social environment, about her privileges, about determinism. Rebellion is in the air...

This is a brilliant and touching story, although sometimes results to be slow-moving and tiring, but resulting to be developed with real intelligence and extreme sensibility. A simple and plain plot but there's a lot more to the movie in the basic script. With Libertad, the young filmmaker Clara Roquet makes her feature film debut with a progressively interesting development, like a soft charm. It turns out to be an enjoyable and really perceptible tale which heightened by the nice acting. Interpretations are pretty good , as the newcomers protagonists play agreeable girls who will have to face off traumatic truths. Performances from the young girls as sensitive and kindly teens are nice. Slowly but surely, this decent film, with a descriptive title meaning Libertad, unfolds the richness of its subject matter through its confident and unpretentious staging. The director delved into her on-screen portrayal of women from Latin America who came to Spain, leaving her relatives in the country to offer them better incomes by going to care for the richest in the Iberian Peninsula. The work thus describes a system of upper/lower classes and exploitation, where each and everyone tries to preserve their interests, but which the younger girls question. But the main issue is the beloved relationship between two teenagers whose friendship eventually to be broken due to class differences and other special circumstances.

It contains a colorful and evocative cinematography, in semi-documentary style at times, by cameran Gris Jordana. The motion picture was well directed by Clara Roquet. This author has left her mark as a scriptwriter for Carlos Marques-Marcet (10,000 km) and Jaime Rosales (Petra), and as a director of short films, especially with El adiós (2015), a test and her first collaboration with non-professional performers. Rating. 6/10. Acceptable and passable.

Saw it at the Film Fest Ghent. Nothing wrong with the movie, it's nicely put together, acting is good and you kinda relate to the main characters but it's just way too slow. I have a feeling deliberately so to give it more 'credibility' which works against it. Story is pretty mediocre, the little story there is, is very mainstream and you can see where the whole thing is going from miles away. It's a nice sunday-afternoon movie but for me surely not something worthy of competing in any competition.

This eloquent feature from screenwriter Clara Roquet is a graceful and nuanced film wrapped deceptively in the cloak of a coming of age story. Roquet deftly dissects class, caste and power in an assured manner, with no histrionics. Roquet's writing experience translates beautifully to her directing debut; Libertad is a delightful watch.