Summer, 1990. Chile is in the process of returning to democracy after 17 years under the dictatorial thumb of Augusto Pinochet. In a coastal town near the Atacama Desert, 15-year-old Celeste is spending the New Year’s Eve holiday with her friends and family at the beach. Just as the world seems full of joy and hope for what a new future will bring, a tragic event shatters the idyllic, optimistic atmosphere and sends her mother into a downward spiral, completely upending both of their lives. Nearly a year later, drawn by the promise of a solar eclipse, Celeste returns to that same coastal town only to discover that nothing is the same as it was just months prior. With her world off its axis, she must forge her own path in an increasingly uncertain world.

Writer-director Nayra Ilic Garcia, working with cinematographer Sergio Armstrong, imbues Cuerpo Celeste with a wonderful, gauzily evocative visual style that reinforces the push and pull between memories of the past and the promise of the future. Newcomer Helen Mrugalski gives an incredible tour-de-force performance as Celeste, signaling an actress we will be seeing more of for years to come. Cuerpo Celeste is a beautiful, emotionally astute and meditative exploration of what it means to grow up, both as an individual and as a nation.—Jason Gutierrez

Nayra Ilic García