‘In the Summers’ Wins Grand Jury Prize at Sundance

Earlier this year, In the Summers premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, and its director, Alessandra Lacorazza, won Best Director. Spanning four summer breaks, the film follows siblings Eva and Violeta as they visit their alcoholic father Vicente in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Each visit becomes increasingly strained as the siblings discover themselves outside of their dad’s approval, and their dad contends with his own mistakes in their lives, including a traumatic accident.

The idea for the film, which mirrors the director’s own life, came naturally following a conversation with her sister, as the two reminisced on the summers they both spent visiting their father. “It struck me that that was a really interesting structure for a film,” Lacorazza says, “to see this father, in these brief moments of time, through the eyes of his daughters, and then the idea grew from that.” 

While the script has certainly shifted since the first iteration, it maintains the feeling of late-night stories from a close friend. It’s less concerned with cinematic spectacle than depicting a reality steeped in remembrance, sculpted with moments of joy and pain. It also serves as a mirror to many aspects of Lacorazza’s life that are rarely seen on screen. “For me, being queer and being Latin, I wanted to tell a story that reflected my life in a way that I haven’t seen,” she says, ”something that was about this complicated relationship within this family. It was Latin and it was queer, but it wasn’t hinging on that. It was just a human story.” 

In what might be considered a rare move, the team decided to shoot on location in Las Cruces instead of using a stand-in location. “Las Cruces was beautiful, and we had a great local team, but there were difficulties,” Lacorazza discloses. “We lost a lot of locations when they found out this film had queer characters. Sometimes they would pull out at the last minute and we were left scrambling. But that’s not specific to Las Cruces, that could have happened anywhere.”

Part of the difficulty in making representative media within the context of their set environment is the process of contending with some of the similar adversities that the fictional characters face. Both the filmic version of the American Southwest and the contemporary region are sites of homophobia, but they also both offer incredible communities that thrive exactly because of these tribulations. 

“We had people with all sorts of different views that were supportive. I had someone who would say, ‘I watch Fox News.’ In New York, you might not talk to people with different views,” says Lacorazza, “because you can kind of live in this microcosm. But that doesn’t happen in Las Cruces. We received so much love from people all across the political spectrum. And that, to me, is powerful.”

Violeta, Lacorazza’s cinematic stand-in, comes to their own queer realization as the film progresses. Moments are littered throughout that engage with, and sometimes supplant, storied queer signifiers found in other media. They lock themselves in the bathroom to cut off their hair, they wear baggy masculine clothing, and they dodge commentary on their sexuality at a party. Each new film act offers a new era for the siblings alongside new actors to portray them. Most notable, though, may be the casting of trans actor Lio Mehiel (Mutt) to portray Violeta as an adult.

“The character was written as queer, but not explicitly as trans,” Lacorazza reveals. “But then I had this incredible, lovely chat with Lio about the character’s resonance, and they were very open. They’re like, ‘I’m trans. I’m gender non-binary. How does that fit into the story?’ I was like, ‘It actually fits in very organically with Violeta.’ I think it adds a lot of depth.”

The film’s portrayal of Violeta’s queer and trans identity feels almost revelatory, starting off as more obvious while slipping into subtle moments, paralleling the unspoken and occasionally awkward facts that go unsaid in many Latin households.

In one scene, Violeta prepares to go into the pool but decides to leave their shirt on. Whereas other films may play this moment as the big (trans)gender reveal to the audience, Lacorazza chooses a more subtle play. She cares more about what Violeta would do in that instance than any presupposition from the viewer. “For Violeta,” Lacorazza says, “it’s not a pain point. Being who they are is a point of power, just like their queerness has always been a point of power in their life. It’s not trauma filled.”

As much as the film follows the viewpoint of both siblings, it never loses focus or offers a prescriptive view on the father. “People come with really varied reactions to Vicente. I think that’s powerful,” contends Lacorazza. “I like to live in the gray, and that sometimes means seeing their ugly sides as well. I want people to be able to see and accept both sides of Vicente.”

The film is a testament to the understanding Lacorazza extends to her father, both in fiction and in real life. “When he first died, I had so much anger towards him. I think I actually developed more empathy through writing this.” The film embraces the messy entanglements of family dynamics through fraught reflections on the reverberations trauma sends throughout a family. 

While the film is just hitting theaters, Lacorazza is still working on her next project.

“I’m still in the early process of writing, but [the next film is] a military story,” she reveals. “It has queer themes, but it’s not specifically queer itself. Maybe one day I’ll make something that has no queer themes, but I don’t see that for myself.”

In The Summers opens at River Oaks Theater as part of their Grand Opening on October 3, 2024.