Dad, I want to be a cloistered nun.

I am writing these lines the day after it was made public. the cover of Rosalía's new album, where she appears dressed in what appears to be a nun's habit. It is curious that this possible shift towards spirituality coincides with the premiere of Alauda Ruiz de Azúa's third and notable feature film (Five little wolves), winner of the Golden Shell at San Sebastián. Ainara, a teenager (Blanca Soroa, a revelation), tells her wealthy family that she wants to become a cloistered nun. Nerves fray and positions clash: on one side is the widowed father, incapable of taking care of his three daughters; on the other, the aunt (Patricia López Arnaiz, in cyclone mode), who by stubbornly insisting on making her niece change her mind ends up undermining her initial role as a voice of reason.

Ruiz de Azúa's strategy is to give each side space to explain its reasons, a decision that may make those expecting a forceful critique of religious institutions and their proselytizing practices uncomfortable. For those who can read between the lines, the critique is there, but the filmmaker doesn't renounce showing the protagonist's faith as a feeling so real and powerful that it questions the familial and social order that surrounds her. It's a bold decision, one that leads to a moving epiphany, but one that proves somewhat problematic in that it turns religion into a kind of counter-hegemonic force, an alternative for young people like Ainara (and Rosalía?), for whom the disappointing material reality is no longer enough.