Olmo (2025) premiered in February at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival where it was nominated for the Panorama Audience Award for Best Feature Film. Co-written with Vanesa Garnica, it is the moving tale of a migrant family trying to cope with a bedridden father. It could have been titled “It’s Olmo’s turn”
“Blue of your colour”
It is 1979 and young 14-year-old Olmo (a charismatic Aivan Uttapa) finds himself stuck, as it is his turn to look after his frail father Néstor (Gustavo Sánchez Parra) who needs full-time care. He fails dismally to persuade his sister Ana to forgo her own outing in his favour and Cecilia their mother, a nurse has to go to work to try to pay their 3-month rent arrears.
Aivan Uttapa as Olmo, Gustavo Sánchez Parra as Néstor and Diego Olmedo as Miguel
Olmo and his friend Miguel (Diego Olmedo) are distraught as they would rather go to a party with the attractive neighbour Nina Sandoval (Melanie Frometa) who flirts with them from afar. Olmo with his friend Miguel attempt to avoid the duties getting up to all sort of mischief that leads to chaos and near tragedy. Will Olmo come to realize what his family really mean to him?
This heart-warming tale is told with humour and charm and young actors Aivan Uttapa and his friend Diego Olmedo reveal their comedic talents. A future lies ahead for these two.
The New Mexico setting is realistic. They live modestly by the railroad with endlessly long freight trains rumbling past, Cecilia’s vintage Ford falcon refuses to work properly and there is little money to go round. Néstor, the sick father refuses to eat frozen lasagna and they are obliged to prepare food for him. There are a number of charming background details from having to fiddle with the outside aerial to get an image on the TV, Miguel being so very proud of his new chihuahua cowboy boots, to having to carry the father’s heavy soiled mattress outside to dry… clearly not for the first time.
Melanie Frometa as Nina Sandoval
The family’s struggle to care for Néstor veer from funny to very sad, Néstor himself is surprisingly cool about it all, ticking off his daughter for smoking , then helping to mend the Hi-Fi. The family all bicker non-stop, between themselves with the stress of caring for Néstor and about Néstor’s brother Julio (Valentín Mexico) who turns up in his fancy car and tries to pinch their BBQ grill insisting he should have it, because his hamburgers are the best.
When Olmo and Miguel managed to flee the house trying to get to the party with the Hi-Fi to impress Nina, they end up at a funeral by mistake, On the way, Olmo learns something about his mother he would rather not know.
Fernando Eimbecke, director.
This is a delightful film from Fernando Eimbcke known for Duck Season (2004- Temporada de Patos), and Lake Tahoe (2008), and Club Sandwich (2013). After his studies at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematographicos and a number of shorts, he now directed six films. He has developed a distinctive style of his own, normally with long takes and a melancholic atmosphere but here he shakes off the dust with this humour and charm.
OLMO (2025) by Fernando Eimbcke will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 14th and October 17th 2025. ( box.office@bfi.org.uk)
- Directed by Fernando Eimbecke Screenwriters: Fernando Eimbcke and Vanesa Garnica / Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Eréndira Núñez Larios, Michel Franco / Executive Producer: Brad Pitt, Caddy Vanasirikul, Eurie Chung / Cinematographer: Carolina Costa /Editor: Mariana Rodríguez / Production Design: Lorus Allen / Composer: Giosuè Greco / Sound Designer: Javier Umpierrez /
- Cast: Olmo: Aivan Uttapa /Nina: Melanie Frometa / Ana: Rosa Armendáriz / Néstor: Gustavo Sánchez Parra / Cecilia: Andrea Suárez Paz / Miguel: Diego Olmedo
