Piggy

During the sweltering summertime of rural Spain, Sara carries an extra load of teenage agony due to the perpetual bullying from her peers. She’s also an outsider at home—her parents and little brother just don’t understand her—so, feelings internalized, she’s often found buried in her headphones, drowning out her surroundings. One day, Sara’s usual solo dip at the local pool is disrupted by the presence of a mysterious stranger in the water and an exceptionally grueling bout of abuse at the hands of three girls. But, in a strange twist of fate, along the way home Sara witnesses her bloodied tormentors being kidnapped in the back of the stranger’s van.

In Carlota Pereda’s strikingly bold and ominous feature adaptation of her award-winning 2018 short film, Sara must decide whether to cooperate with the police and parents’ questioning about the kidnappings, or take her own, unbridled path—while also discovering the power of desire and belonging, and the distinction between revenge and redemption.

“Pereda, who also wrote the script, is not afraid of psychological and moral ambiguity: It’s obvious that she is on Sara’s side — the bullying scenes are much harder to watch than the bloody ones — but she also knows that shame, guilt and secrecy fester into messy situations and messy people.” ~Elisabeth Vincentelli, The New York Times

“Every time we relax into our smug “I know where this is going,” Pereda finds a way to trip us up.” ~Roger Moore, Movie Nation