Thursday Till Sunday
Starring: Santi Ahumada, Emiliano Freifeld, Paola Giannini
Director: Dominga Sotomayor
Rating: 3.5/5
Dominga Sotomayor makes her feature length directorial debut this week with the very beautiful Thursday Till Sunday - a movie about relationships and childhood.
It all begins on a Thursday when two children go on a holiday trip with their parents to the north of Chile.
It all ends on a Sunday. Lucía (10) and Manuel (7) travel for the long weekend with their parents, Ana and Fernando. The couple has decided to break up but has previously promised their children to go to the north, so they decide to travel anyway.
The journey slowly turns into a final goodbye. It’s a long route. The landscape’s loneliness and the car’s confinement begin to surface the troubles of the couple.
Thursday Till Sunday is an incredibly straight forward in the story that it tells and the way that Sotomayor delivers the movie and yet it is a powerful film - not to mention is incorporates aspects from childhood that we can all connect with.
This is an impressive debut film from Sotomayor as she has crafted a captivating and emotional movie from start to finish.
This is very much an adult world seen through the eyes of a child and is as much a coming of age story as it is a road movie.
Santi Ahumada takes on the central role of Lucia in the movie and she watches her parent's marriage dissolve in front of her eyes whilst trying to comprehend what is happening.
It is a terrific performance from Ahumada and it is hard to believe that this is her first time in front of a camera.
There is a really natural feel to her performance - which is a breathe of fresh air as many child actors are rigid because of lessons they learnt in drama school.
Quite a lot of the film is set inside the car that they are travelling in and this heightens the tension even further as it is gives a very claustrophobic feel, which works really well.
Sotomayor has also captured the Chilean landscape perfectly and uses it wonderfully throughout the film.
Thursday Till Sunday is a movie that really does capture the sprit and fun of childhood and yet there is this undercurrent of this child watching the final moments of her parent's marriage.
Dominga Sotomayor has delivered an assured and confident movie and it is hard to believe that she is making her debut.
We caught up with Dominago Sotomayor to chat about the movie.
Thursday Till Sunday is out now.