Burn the Bridges (Quemar Las Naves)

Siblings Helena and Sebastián live in a crumbling colonial villa with their dying mother, a former pop star, in central Mexico. Nineteen-year-old Helena, a bewitchingly charismatic and determined girl, quits school to become her mother's caretaker. She also lovingly assumes parental responsibility for her shy, artistic brother Sebastián who attends the local Catholic high school. Isolated in the secluded villa, Helena reads to her mother and practices English in the hope of someday visiting the snowy mountains of Canada. However, as time goes by and their mother's condition worsens, Helena grows jealous of the passive Sebastián who roams freely, if awkwardly, through his teenage life of denial. Their symbiotic relationship is further ruptured when Sebastián meets troubled Juan, a tough new student from the coast who awakens a sense of danger, desire, and possibility in him. After their mother dies and fate of their home becomes uncertain, the emotional rivalry between the siblings reaches an operatic intensity as they confront the limits of fraternal loyalty and the choice of living in the past or destroying it to manifest their dreams.

An accomplished stage director in Mexico, Francisco Franco delivers a beautifully photographed and mature debut film that is, at turns, dark, tender, and humorous. Phenomenal acting, including an Ariel award-winning performance by Irene Azuela as Helena, elevates a script with limited dialogue to glorious heights of raw teenage emotion. Successful at international film festivals as well in its home country, Burn the Bridges is a moving testament to the courage it takes to live one's life to the fullest.
Kyle Stephan