NEW YORK, NY.- Film Forum will present the U.S. theatrical premiere of Lucía Aleñar Iglesias’ FORASTERA on Friday, May 29.

Teenager Cata (Zoe Stein) is summering at her grandparents’ house on the Spanish island of Mallorca, swimming in the turquoise Mediterranean waters, teasing her younger sister, and flirting with a Swedish boy. But this vacation idyll is cut short when her beloved grandmother Catalina (Marta Angelat) abruptly dies, hurling each member of Cata’s family into mourning. One day, she slips into her grandmother’s dress and feels an unexpected pull toward her abuela’s clothes and belongings. As the boundary between the living and the departed begins to blur, FORASTERA (Spanish for “stranger”) becomes a quietly suspenseful meditation on memory, grief, and the unseen forces that continue to influence our lives.

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. It went on to screen at Spanish film festivals Seminci Valladolid, where Aleñar Iglesias won the Pilar Miró Award for Best New Director, and Almería International, where the film won the Special Jury Award.

“An unexpectedly tender ghost story.” – Natalia Keogan, Filmmaker Magazine

10 out of 10. “Poetic… Lyrical. Stein is a revelation from the beginning to the end… FORASTERA is quiet, powerful, and elegant… Impossible to deny that this film is anything short of excellent in every way.” – Bobby LePire, Film Threat

“A quiet and intimate portrait of grief held very closely to the chest… A different kind of ghost story, one perhaps more about benevolence and longing that vengeance. It is more concerned with how we make it through those first troubling days and learn what it will take to live through the loss of love.” – Shelagh Rowan-Legg, Screen Anarchy

“A deftly observed story about the different forms that grief can take, and how in moments of tragedy, some of the oldest and most pernicious patterns of family behavior suddenly assert themselves.” – Michael Sicinski, In Review Online

FORASTERA (2025, 97 min.) Written and Directed by Lucía Aleñar Iglesias. Cinematography: Agnès Piqué. Editing: Paola Freddi. Music: Anna von Hausswolff, Filip Leyman. Starring Zoe Stein, Lluís Homar. Starring Zoe Stein (Cata), Martina García (Eva), Marta Angelat (Catalina), Lluís Homar (Tomeu), Núria Prims (Pepa). Spain / Italy / Sweden. In Catalan, English, and Spanish with English subtitles. Grasshopper Film.

Presented with support from The Robert E. Appel Fund for Spanish and Portuguese Language Films and The Endowed Fund for Emerging Filmmakers