A new trailer offers a first look at Carla Simón’s Romería, an intimate film about family stories, memory and reunion
The filmmaker Carla Simón returns with Romería, her third feature, following the critically acclaimed debut Summer 1993 and the Golden Bear winner Alcarràs. The film reached audiences on the festival circuit, including a notable presentation at Cannes, and now Janus Films has released an official trailer. Audiences in New York will be able to see the film when it begins screenings on June 26 at Film at Lincoln Center and Film Forum, with plans for a wider national expansion. The early promotional materials emphasize tender performances and an intimate tone rather than a conventional plot-driven hook.
Romería follows 18-year-old Marina as she travels to Spain’s Atlantic coast to meet relatives she has never known. The story unfolds as a sequence of recollections and conversations that slowly reveal family histories, loyalties and omissions. Led by the magnetic newcomer Llúcia Garcia, the production mixes professional actors and non-professionals to create an ensemble that feels lived-in and immediate. The film is often described in terms of quiet emotion and careful observation: it privileges character details and small gestures to illuminate larger questions about identity, loss and belonging. Coming-of-age elements mingle with meditations on memory and inheritance.
At its core, Romería is concerned with the stories families keep and the ones they choose to bury. The narrative charts Marina’s attempts to reconcile personal memories of her parents with the patchwork of explanations supplied by relatives, each guarding their own secrets. The rhythm of the film favors pauses and domestic textures over dramatic set pieces, allowing the viewer to inhabit the emotional geography of the household. The use of a largely mixed cast gives the film a documentary-like texture: everyday interactions become charged with meaning. The filmmakers frame these exchanges to underline themes of displacement and the yearning for roots without resorting to melodrama.
Simón’s work has long drawn on personal experience, and Romería continues that strand. Her previous features mined childhood and family memory with a frankness that critics noted for its emotional precision. The director’s own history—her parents died of AIDS when she was young, and she later reconnected with her father’s family in Vigo, Galicia—resonates through the film’s focus on reunion and the search for origin. That biographical frame informs not just subject matter but tone: the film’s restraint and intimacy feel like deliberate choices rooted in lived experience. Simón’s reputation as an autobiographical filmmaker is reinforced by how she weaves personal history into fictional form.
Commentators have observed that Romería shares a low-key register with Alcarràs, returning to themes of intergenerational tension and the slow accretion of family myth. Critics writing from the festival circuit highlighted how the film handles silence and omission, treating them as narrative material rather than gaps to be filled. One reviewer suggested this might be Simón’s most personal film yet, noting how the director’s own reunification with relatives at the same age as her protagonist provides an emotional anchor. The film thus functions on two levels: as a portrait of a young woman finding her bearings and as a reflection on how families narrate themselves.
The arrival of the official trailer signals the next phase of the film’s life outside festivals. Janus Films has positioned the movie for an initial New York opening before rolling it out more broadly across the country. Early reactions from festival screenings emphasize the film’s tenderness and the strength of its ensemble, while attention has concentrated on Llúcia Garcia as a striking new presence. Distributors appear to be banking on word-of-mouth and critical momentum built at festivals like Cannes to carry the film into specialty cinemas and cultural centers where audiences are receptive to intimate, character-driven work.
The newly released clip offers a compact impression of the film’s mood: muted seaside landscapes, domestic interiors, and face-to-face conversations that slowly disclose deeper histories. The trailer highlights the film’s balance of specificity and universality—a local story that speaks to broader questions of belonging. Viewers curious to see the full work can look for screenings beginning on June 26 at Film at Lincoln Center and Film Forum, after which the film is scheduled for a national expansion. For those following Simón’s career, Romería represents both a continuation and an intensification of her interest in family, memory and place.