Directed by: Arturo López Rodas
Country: El Salvador
Running time: 13’46”
Genre: Fiction
Subgenres: Drama, Family, Relationships
Year: 2026

Logline:
After not seeing each other for years, Luis decides to visit his brother to make amends, before he regrets not having done so.

Synopsis:
Luis hasn’t spoken to his brother Pepe in eight years. There’s some unfinished business they have from when they were partners. It’s only after his sister in law tells him Pepe had a stroke that he decides to visit him, since this could be the last chance to talk things through. From the moment Luis reaches the front door, he feels judged by Pepe’s religious decorations. His guilt makes him beat around the bush with stories, because he can’t bring himself to accept that he’s caused his brother pain.

Director’s Statement:
Guilt is resentment’s sibling. We find guilt shameful, so we may dance around the subject and not really talk about it, but deep down we feel judged. You wait long enough and that guilt may turn to regret. That’s the approach I took to tell this story about two brothers who hadn’t seen each other in years. The reason they fought is not really important; the important thing is that they fought and somebody’s to blame.
There are these elements in the story, like the lingering “walk of atonement” at the beggining or the religious imagery, that I included because I link feelings of guilt to being raised catholic.
Now that I’m a non-believer, I ironically find myself even more captivated by the symbols and the rituals and all the things in religion that I took for granted.
This, let’s call it spiritual interest and the want to put it on film, led me to study the narrative structure of Tarkovsky’s last films and Kiéslowski’s Dekalog, which led me to Paul Schrader’s book about Transcendental Cinema, which led me to filmmakers such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Lav Díaz, which led me to a minimalistic approach to filmmaking.
All these influences resulted in the film’s aesthetics and feel. Even if a few minutes in, the film turns a bit more chatty than the usual contemplative cinema piece