RTF Presents: Screening of IN THE SUMMERS

The Department of Radio-Television-Film presents a Latino Media Arts & Studies (L-MAS) Speaker Series screening of IN THE SUMMERS, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Alessandra Lacorazza and RTF Assistant Professor Iliana Sosa. The screening will start at 5:30 pm, and the conversation will immediately follow.

About the film:

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Directing Award in the U.S. Dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival, this delicately powerful ode to fractured fatherhood and sibling solidarity follows sisters Violeta and Eva over the course of the most formative years of their lives, spending the summers in New Mexico visiting their adoring but tempestuous father, Vicente. The two siblings must figure out a way to navigate coming of age and emerge unscathed as Vicente’s recklessness drives the roller coaster of their youth.

In his first major acting role, multi-Grammy and Latin Grammy Award-winning Puerto Rican rapper and activist Residente is a towering revelation, imbuing the complicated Vicente with a potent mix of vulnerability and danger. Filmmaker Alessandra Lacorazza – whose incisive direction was celebrated at Sundance – drew from personal experiences to bring her feature debut to life. Also starring Lío Mehiel (Mutt, Frameline47) and Sasha Calle (The Flash), In the Summers examines the complexities of family, trauma, and identity through its Latinx and queer characters at various epochal junctures on the winding road to redemption and salvation.

Watch trailer.

Alessandra Lacorazza

Alessandra Lacorazza (she/they) is a queer Colombian-American writer-director and editor based in Brooklyn. Their work deals with personal and cultural memory, and incorporates themes of alienation, resilience and moral gray areas. Her debut feature In the Summers won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where Alessandra also took home the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award. In The Summers also won the Miami Film Festival Jordan Ressler First Feature Award, the Deauville International Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, the Fondation Louis Roederer Revelation Prize, the Athens International Film Festival - Best Director award, and was nominated for the Gotham and Indie Spirit Awards. 

Alessandra was a 2020 screenwriting fellow with WGA-East and FilmNation. Her work has been supported by NYFA and FOFIF. Alessandra is currently working on their next feature script and has been part of Meerkat Media since 2017.