Alauda Ruiz de Azúa has fast become one of Spain’s most beloved and prolific filmmakers with credits like Lullaby (2022) and Querer (2024). And she returns this year with a new project, her fourth in three years, titled Los Domingos (Sundays), which debuts this evening at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Once again shot in her native Bilbao, the film is an ingenious exploration of religion and its position within Spanish life. The plot follows the story of Ainara, an intelligent 17-year-old who is trying to decide what to study at university. However, the young woman begins to feel a calling from God and decides to embrace the life of a cloistered nun. The news takes her entire family by surprise, creating a chasm and putting everyone to the test.
Alauda was not raised in the Catholic church, so this story, unlike Lullaby, does not take inspiration from Alauda’s life.
“My education was secular. It was like a completely different world,” Alauda tells us ahead of her trip to San Sebastian.
The film was instead inspired by the life of a young Spanish woman that Alauda observed many years ago, who left her family for a monastery.
“At that time, I was very young, and it was a mystery to me why somebody would do something like that,” she says, adding that she returned to the memory after shooting her debut Lullaby and managed to construct a fictional narrative that could work for the big screen.
Copyright: David Herranz
“I discovered the approach to talk about this story, and it involved the family,” Alauda says. “It’s not only the girls’ journey, but how does a family deal with something like that in the moment. I knew that would be an interesting approach.”
The film is led by Blanca Soroa, who plays Ainara. Her performance is subtle and nuanced, which provides the film with a profound air of mystery that keeps the viewer engaged and raises the dramatic stakes as religion takes an increasing hold over Ainara’s life. Staggeringly, Los Domingos is Soroa’s first on-screen performance. Alauda says she and her team searched real-life convents and religious schools for their Ainara before landing on Soroa.
“It’s a particular profile, you know, a cultivated girl from a high middle-class family. When we finally saw Blanca, we fell in love with her because she has such cinematic qualities. It’s all in her face,” Alauda says of her lead actress. “You look at her, and it just activates something religious in you.”
Curiously, for a story about religion, in Spain, a country known for its vibrant and dramatic approach to Catholicism, Los Domingos is visually muted, shaped by measured camera movement and monochrome colors. Alauda says that was a deliberate choice.
“The tension of the movie is built on two very different and extreme points of view. So I wanted to treat every character as equal. That’s why the camera is so sober,” Alauda says. “It creates a distance that allows the viewer to judge for themselves.”
Los Domingos will be one of the most high-profile Spanish titles at San Sebastian, in part due to its subject matter, but also as the centerpiece offering from the local production and streaming giant Movistar Plus+. Alauda worked with the company on her 2024 series Querer.
“They have done amazing work over the last few years,” Alauda says of the streamer. “They aren’t scared to take risks, and when they bet on your project, they protect it and you. It’s really been a pleasure to work with them.”
Alauda is now, alongside filmmakers like Carla Simón and Oliver Laxe, who also have new films at San Sebastian, among the leaders of a new and vibrant generation of international Spanish filmmakers. That comes with a new level of scrutiny.
“It is different when no one knows who you are and you are just alone in your room,” she says. “But all these things happened to me in my 40s, so I have a different perspective.”
She adds: “I knew I wanted this to happen for a very long time, so I had the time to think about why. And the why is that I love stories. I love to go to places that are sometimes uncomfortable, where I have questions. So I know my path. And I just try to protect that.”
With her increased profile, I ask Alauda whether she has plans to leave Spain and work internationally. (In 2023, she directed the Spanish-language romance film Are You for Netflix). Her answer was resolute.
“For me, it depends on the project. I’m not going to go international for the sake of it,” she says. “I’m in a privileged position right now, because I can choose what I do. I can go to places with a project, and they are going to listen to me. It’s a very privileged position. But I also think there is a responsibility of really believing in what I do. Everything depends on the project and the story.”
Los Domingos debuts this evening in San Sebastian. Producers on the film are Marisa Fernández Armenteros, Sandra Hermida, Manu Calvo, and Nahikari Ipiña. San Sebastian runs until September 27.
