Sundays is an engrossing insight into a young woman following her faith and how her fragmented family reacts to her choice.
Sundays screens as part of this year’s 2026 HSBC Spanish and Latin American Film Festival, more information about the festival is available here: HSBC Spanish & Latin American Film Festival in cinemas June
Read the Glam Adelaide story about the festival here: 2026 HSBC Spanish & Latin American Film Festival begins 10 June – 5 July at Palace Nova Cinemas – Glam Adelaide
Sundays (Los domingos) is an engrossing insight into a young woman following her faith and how her fragmented family reacts to her choice highlighted by strong performances from Patricia López Arnaiz and Blanca Soroa.
Set in The Basque Country, Sundays follows 17-year-old Ainiara (Blanca Soroa) who upon returning home from a religious retreat with school friends, wants to go back and spend more time with the nuns. She asks her father Iñaki (Miguel Garcés) who is a widower and owner of a financially stretched restaurant, but he is noncommittal to her request. Ainiara’s atheist aunty and Iñaki’s sister, Maite (Patricia López Arnaiz), who has a close relation with Ainiara, is concerned with Ainiara’s interest in the nuns informing her that she should go to university and experience more of life before committing to a religious vocation. Ainiara’s grandmother, María Dolores (Mabel Rivera), is also concerned with her decision. Meanwhile, Ainiara continues her life and even has an encounter with a young man from her choir.
Maite and Iñaki visit madre priora Isabel (Nagore Aranburu) and ask her to tell Ainiara to continue her studies and to go to university but she refuses to do so insisting instead that these types of matters are up to God’s will.
The title Sundays refers to the dual institutions of both religious observation and the family’s weekly get together referenced throughout the film. Director and screenwriter, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s engrossing script dissects the family, from Ainiara’s restrained relationship with her father, to Iñaki’s and Maite’s often tense relationship, Maite’s relationship with her partner Pablo (Juan Minujín), both siblings’ relationship with their aging mother and so on. The script engages not only in the loud moments of the relationships but the silent ones as well, which are sometimes the most telling.
Miguel Garcés as the mostly emotionally restrained father is excellent as well as Patricia López Arnaiz’s at times fiery performance as the concerned aunty. It is Blanca Soroa’s superb performance however that is the centre of the film as she struggles with her family and her religious calling.
Sundays is an excellent examination of a family in crisis and a young woman struggling to convince them of her need for spiritual service and another highlight of this year’s festival.
Reviewed by Rob McKinnon
Rating 5 out of 5
Distributor: Palace Films
