Year of Enlightment

Spring of 1940, one year after the Spanish Civil War. Manolo, a boy of 16 years, and his brother Jesus, 8 years old, are the children of a soldier killed in battle. The two must leave Madrid when they begin to have symptoms of tuberculosis. The older brother of the two siblings, Pepe, an army officer, is in charge of taking them to a sanatorium in Sierra de Gata, a rural area near the border with Portugal and which is led by members of the Spanish Falange and the Women's Section. There, the teenage Manolo begins to have his sexual awakening, something specific of his16 years. At night, he spies on the nurse who cares for him, Vicenta, while she undresses to put on her uniform. When Vicenta leaves the job, Manolo will fall in love with her substitute, María Jesús, a teenage girl from the town, only a year older than him and who will correspond to him. This will not be seen well by the director of the center, because she wants the adolescent, nor the priest of the town, who is the Mary Jesús' uncle. Winner of the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress and Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for the best outstanding individual achievement.