Queer Mexican filmmaker Churcho E. Quintero follows up his intriguing sleeper hit Velociraptor with this new tale of group of adolescents who use a weekend away in the countryside to explore their sexuality and test their relationships.
It’s just after High School Graduation and Isobel (Sofia Sylwin) wants to take a trip was from the city after she broke with with Romain (Gerardo Del Razo) once she found he had also been sleeping with Oscar)Carlos Hendrick Huber). Unbeknownst to her both of the young men were also in Roco’s (Christopher Aguilasocho) house party which made for some awkwardness, but as Isobel waa now sleeping with Renata (Carolina Gómez) she didn’t care quite so much.. Or at least she pretended she didn’t .
The only other cloud over this tight knit group of friends was the fact that Juan Pablo (Isaí Flores Navarrete) one of their number had been missing from home for over two weeks and everyone was beginning to worry about his safety . All of them had their own special memories of him.
Despite all the sexual fluidity and people swapping partners as the weekend progressed, most of the teenagers were still overly anxious at being able to lay claim to one person in particular as their boyfriend and girlfriend which surprisingly brought it back to some sort of old fashioned reality.
They all possessed the earnestness that all precious teens do without the slightest perception that first love (or lust) fades so quickly no matter how real it feels at the time. The fact that their perceived rivals may be of the opposite sex had no real bearing for them at all, as Quintero had set up the perfect scenario where for once this refreshingly didn’t matter at all.
His young extremely natural cast, most of whom had also been in Velociraptor, served his movie well and gave compelling performances as if this were their own lives they were leading.
The movie is next screened in Wales at the Iris Prize Festival far removed from the setting of the Mexican countryside and in a country where one assumes that sexual fluidity in youth is not nearly so common, but will no doubt be totally engaged with Quintero’s film as we were
