Sunlight plays through the leaves, shining on the water of the swimming pool and on the guests lazing or sauntering around an old spa resort in southern Chile. Inside, the staff receive lessons in folding serviettes and from afar someone approaches on a motorbike after having a tattoo done. In the background, a young couple practices kissing. Like Torres Leiva’s previous The Sky, the Earth and the Rain (Tiger Awards Competition 2008), Summertime is a mosaic filled with minor everyday occurrences and outflanking manoeuvres. The film focuses on the mood, occasionally captured in extreme close-ups of eyes or drops of water on the skin. Love, desire and loneliness are themes in this film that, in the director’s words, ‘walks a thin line between beauty and desperation’. Shot on location, where Torres Leiva often accompanied his grandparents as a child, Summertime came about with the support of the Hubert Bals Fund and premiered in Venice.
