Diecisiete y medio

What to do in a late summer afternoon when you are a teenager? In Andrea Alborch Martínez's first short film, two twin brothers spend an idle afternoon in the streets of Elche, a small city in the province of Alicante. They ride their bikes, buy something to eat, stroll along the promenade and around the soccer stadium. The truth is that nothing happens because it is a summer afternoon and in the summer afternoons of adolescence nothing ever happens, nor is there much to do. At most dreaming or waiting for what is to come and this is the beauty of DIECISIETE y medio, to show us the time of doing nothing, of wandering, because wasting that moment would also be a crime. With perfectly written and interpreted dialogues and a photography that frames and gathers the spirit of this Levantine city with its warm atmosphere, Andrea Alborch Martínez makes a small piece, which in its simplicity gathers some universal and eternal motifs of the passage from childhood to adulthood. NURIA CUBAS