This week on Someone Else’s Movie, it’s my pleasure to welcome writer-director Lucía Aleñar Iglesias to the show.

Lucía’s debut feature Forastera, which won the FIPRESCI prize at TIFF, is kicking off its North American theatrical run this Friday at Film Forum in New York — and Lucía will be present for Q&As after the 7pm shows on Friday and Saturday night, so if you’re in town you should make it a priority to catch one of those screenings.

Forastera is an eerie, understated drama about a family coping with the death of their matriarch, and so I was very happy to learn she’d chosen Celine Sciamma’s beguiling 2021 drama Petite Maman, which explores similar ground through the eyes of eight-year-old  Nelly, who’s just lost her grandmother and doesn’t really know how to feel about that yet. But then she meets another eight-year-old in the forest behind her grandmother’s house, a new friend to play with and maybe even talk to. Her name is Marion, which is also Nelly’s mother’s name. There’s a reason for that.

I really love this movie, and I’m very happy I got to talk about it at length with someone who experienced it at least as intensely as I did. (And if you haven’t seen it, the Criterion Blu-ray is on sale right now!)

Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice, or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it while you wait for your new friend to return from … wherever it is she goes when you’re not around. It’s probably fine.

And then catch up on Shiny Things! Last week I wrote about the new 4K releases of Speed Racer and George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey and Criterion’s release of Ira Sach’s The Delta, and subscribers to the paid tier got my exclusive reviews of The Mandalorian and Grogu, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed and Silent Friend in the weekly edition of What’s Worth Watching. All good stuff, really; if you missed it, maybe consider upgrading, or at least checking out the 14-day free trial? That’d be really cool.