Bueu, July 31, 2025 – The screening will take place on September 5, the same day the film hits cinemas, and will be one of the few showings in Spain on premiere day to feature members of the film team.
The FICBUEU will also host, during its first weekend, a series of Film Sessions focused on music and cinema, with participation from Ana Pfaff (the film’s editor) and Ernest Pipó (composer of the soundtrack).
The Bueu International Film Festival (FICBUEU), which will run from September 5 to 20, will open its 18th edition with Romería, a film by Carla Simón that recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The screening is scheduled for Friday, September 5 at 8:30 p.m. and will be one of the few screenings on the film’s release day to feature members of the cast and crew. Attending this special screening will be Ferrol-born director and actor Alberto Gracia, and Marina Troncoso from Vigo.
In the film, Marina (played by Llúcia Garcia), who was adopted at a very young age, travels to Vigo to meet her biological father’s family for the first time. Her arrival reawakens a long-buried past. Guided by her mother’s diary and a special bond with her new cousin, Marina will uncover deep family wounds and finally piece together the fragmented memory of parents she barely remembers.
With Romería (2025), the Catalan filmmaker continues her exploration of family bonds, one of the central themes in her work. “My parents were young during Spain’s democratic transition in the 1980s, a time of freedom and experimentation when young people broke away from the deeply Catholic and conservative values of the past. However, this long-awaited period of freedom, known as La Movida, also brought a heroin crisis that made Spain the European country with the highest rate of AIDS-related deaths. These stories have often been silenced,” says Carla Simón. In Romería, it’s time to tell them.
This is the third feature film by Carla Simón, following Summer 1993 and Alcarràs. Summer 1993 (2017) was her autobiographical debut. It won the Best First Feature Award and the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus section at the Berlinale, as well as three Goya Awards, including Best New Director. The film represented Spain at the 2018 Oscars, earned a European Film Awards Discovery nomination, and won Carla the Kering Emerging Women in Motion award at Cannes. Her next film, Alcarràs (2022), won the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlinale, was selected at over 90 international festivals, and sold to more than 35 territories. It also represented Spain at the 2023 Oscars, earned three European Film Awards nominations, and won six Gaudí Awards from the Catalan Film Academy. In 2023, Carla received Spain’s National Film Award.
Film Sessions: Music and Cinema
This will not be the only activity related to the film hosted by FICBUEU. During the festival’s first weekend, the Film Sessions will be held under this year’s theme: music and cinema. With editor Ana Pfaff and composer Ernest Pipó, the sessions will delve into the music and editing of Romería.
Editing and musical composition are both fundamental elements in shaping the rhythm of a film, and their correct combination can be crucial to achieving a satisfying final result. During the session, Pfaff and Pipó will reflect on their collaborative process in the film, in a discussion moderated by Gaspar Broullón.
Ana Pfaff has focused her editing work mainly on independent cinema. She has collaborated with filmmakers such as Chema García Ibarra, Víctor Iriarte, and Clara Roquet. Many of the films she has edited have successfully toured international festivals, including Alcarràs, winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale (2022), and Romería, which premiered in the Official Selection at Cannes. Her editing work has earned her two Gaudí Awards and two Goya nominations.
Ernest Pipó is a Barcelona-based composer. He began his musical career as a guitarist in instrumental and improvised music. He approached written tradition and piano music through his interest in film. In this field, he composed the scores for Summer 1993 (2017) and the short film Después también (2019), both earlier works by Carla Simón.
This is just a glimpse of the broader Film Sessions at FICBUEU, which will focus on music and cinema—central themes in this year’s festival programming.
