Cielo

In the breathtaking Bolivian Altiplano, precocious 8-year-old Santa (Fernanda Gutiérrez Aranda) lives a hardscrabble life with her devoted mother. Desperate to escape and to save her mother from her abusive father, she devises an otherworldly plan to rescue her mother from a grueling life of toil. Starting by swallowing a goldfish, she sets off on a fantastical journey that will take her across the country to find a mystical land without suffering. Along the way she crosses paths with a boisterous troupe of wrestling Cholitas, a remote priest and a weary cop, leaving a trail of miracles in her wake.

Shot on location in Bolivia with an eye-popping color palette, Spanish filmmaker Alberto Sciamma’s sensational magical realist fable bursts with empathy and resilience. Critics have chimed in saying, “... it offers considerable ambition, aesthetic beauty and bittersweet enchantment, with a surprisingly wide viewer appeal. It is at once this writer-director’s sweetest film and by far his most accomplished,” according to Dennis Harvey and "It’s heartwarming, even in the haziness of its ambiguous ending, a deeply sincere fantasy drama that can tug on even the firmest of heartstrings,” opines Clint Worthington on behalf of Roger Ebert.

Winner, International Fantasy Film Special Jury Award, Audience Award and Best Cinematography, 2025 Fantasporto Film Festival. Official Selection, 2025 SXSW London and Fantasia film festivals.

Director Alberto Sciamma, Bolivia/UK, 2025, color, 109 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.