Sad Girlz

Fernanda Tovar's first feature is a Mexican, Spanish and French co-production led by Colectivo Colmena with Potenza Producciones and the French company Promenades Films. It premiered in the Generation 14plus strand of the Berlinale in February 2026, where it took both the Crystal Bear for Best Film and the International Jury's Grand Prix, and it has since travelled to Tribeca, Lima, the Horizontes Latinos section at San Sebastián and competition at Morelia. Wild Bunch released it in French cinemas in August.

The film is built around two sixteen-year-old swimmers, played by Rocío Guzmán and Darana Álvarez, whose friendship is tested after a party that one of them cannot put behind her. Mónica del Carmen and Tomás García-Agraz lead the adult cast. Tovar, who also wrote the screenplay, keeps the focus on the two girls, with photography by Rosa Hadit Hernández and music by Wissam Hojeij.

Reviews have been uniformly positive: 100% on Rotten Tomatoes from its first critics, Marta Balaga in Cineuropa calling it a bittersweet stunner, and Nikki Baughan in Screen praising a sensitive and knowing study of teenage friendship powered by its young leads. It belongs with How to Have Sex and Mustang among recent films that take adolescent girls seriously as the authors of their own story, and it announces Tovar as a director to follow.