Winner of the US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2024, IN THE SUMMERS is both an emotional capsule of growing up within a fragmented family and a love letter to the resilience needed to survive.
Siblings Violeta and Eva live in California with their mother, but every summer they travel to Las Cruces, New Mexico, to spend time with their loving but unpredictable father, Vicente (Puerto Rican rapper, singer/songwriter René “Residente” Pérez Joglar in an unforgettable debut acting performance). Over the course of four formative summers that span adolescence to early adulthood, Violeta and Eva learn to appreciate their father as a person, his flaws and limitations inseparable from his passion and tenderness. Lovers come and go, the backyard goes to seed, but the idea of home remains knotty and elusive. This powerful and deeply personal directorial debut from Alessandra Lacorazza offers a nuanced study of young people questioning their place within their families, their communities, and their identities.