Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio – like many Latinas – knows what she wants. And for her movie In The Summers, what she wanted was Latinas.
“That was a requirement for me,” says Alessandra Lacorazza. “No. I mean, at the beginning people kept sending me Spanish actors. And I’m like, ‘No. No. I know they speak Spanish, but it’s a different continent. It’s not the same.’ That was a non-negotiable for me, like period.” Lacorazza is clearly passionate about her point, but not at all pushy. And, if we are being completely honest, that’s just like her film.
In The Summers is the story of two sisters and the relationship they have with their father as seen during the summers they spend with him. That may sound simple, but, anyone with a family can tell you, it’s not.
“A lot of us have complicated relationships with our fathers. Family relationships or complicated sibling relationships, it’s just a very human thing,” Lacorazza tells Latina Media Co in our one-on-one interview. “I hate oversimplification in any facet, and I just wanted people to understand how important it is to live in that complexity and to understand that we are complex beings.”
This layering is saturated on the screen in every scene. In every look, and by every actor. But because the film takes place in the summers over the girls most formative years, Lacorazza needed three separate sets of Latina actors to play the roles of sisters Eva and Violeta.
Sasha Calle (The Flash) is the oldest Eva and Lio Mehiel (Mutt) is the oldest Violeta. Simply put, they are sensational. And they aren’t the only ones either. Each Latina who takes on the role of Eva or Violeta is effortless in their roles. All of the ladies go toe-to-toe with their dad Vicente, played by Puerto Rican rapper Residente (a.k.a. René Pérez Joglar).
“When you look at him, you know he’s a rapper. He has his rough exterior. He’s got the tattoos. But, then you listen to his music or you watch the documentary he did, or you listen to his interviews and he’s incredibly smart, thoughtful, and kind. He just brings this presence with him,” says Lacorazza. “I’m like, ‘That’s exactly who I want in my film. That’s what I’m trying to capture.”
And what she captured was utter perfection. Residente could have easily taken up residence in the land of the loud machismo Latino male. He did not. Instead he and the Latinas who play his hijas communicate something on screen that is so achingly beautiful and raw that it feels like having a cheese grater taken to your soul.
It should come as no surprise thatt this gem of a film tis born out of personal experience. Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio not only directed In The Summers, she wrote it too, basing it on the experiences she and her sister had with her father. “I don’t think it’s self therapy. I think that there was a process of that for sure,” says Lacorazza. “It was just me trying to explain this feeling of my father, this complication of this figure, this beauty of the sibling relationship. Those are such important things to me and that I just wanted to be able to communicate them in as much detail as possible and have it be conveyed emotionally.”
A hard task for any actor that was made that much more difficult for Residente given the fact that it was his first starring role. “I say this as a joke all the time, but I think it’s true. I think he agreed to do the film because he thought it would never get made, and then he was like, ‘Oh, fu*k!’.’” jokes Lacorazza. “I know he’s not an actor, but he’s been in front of the camera for most of his life. He’s very skilled, and he just has one of those expressive faces.”
That expressive face was put to the test, says the director, “That’s the hardest part of Rene’s performance is that in a day, we would maybe shoot three summers, or maybe sometimes even four summers. So he’s jumping back between all these realities. Back and forth, and that is kind of little bit of a mindfu*k for everyone, but especially for Renee. And he did an incredible job.”
Lacorazza credits her father, fittingly enough, with giving her the tools she needed to direct. “My father was a teacher and he always used to say that if a student didn’t understand something, it was the teacher’s fault because you weren’t communicating it correctly,” she says. “I think to a lot of extent, that’s what being a director is – working with actors. Because everyone has a different way to approach a character and to understand a character. And so for me, one of my biggest jobs was to find out how to communicate with each actor, and that’s just getting to know them.”
And that’s not the only reason Alessandra Lacorazza is thinking about her father, when we talk. “Tomorrow is his death anniversary,” she say. “He’s been dead for 14 years, and I was born on the 14th of April, so 14 has always been like a number for me, and it’s also a super moon tomorrow. The fucking universe is doing some universe shit right here,” she continues. “My father and that side of the family is very private… I don’t know that I would have had the bravery to put it out there [if he was still alive], but my father was always very supportive of me,” she continues. “I think he would have enjoyed the journey I’ve been on to get here, and he really would have appreciated that.”
Well, we certainly do. I first screened In The Summers in January of 2024. Nine months and two Sundance wins – one in the Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic category and the other for Directing Award – later, the film remains in my top ten of 2024. In the Summers isn’t just an excellent independent film, it’s an excellent film, period. I put it up against the big boys and their films about toys, any day.
That gente, is a hill I am prepared to die on.
In The Summers also stars Leslie Grace (In The Heights) and is out in select theaters nationwide now.
