EVA

In 2041 the cybernetics engineer Alex returns to his home town after years away. His job is to finish an advanced artificial intelligence prototype in the shape of a child. To find his model he needs to observe a real child, and he picks Eva, his brother's daughter. She is ten, clever and not remotely biddable. There is another reason he came back: Eva's mother, who used to be his. The film is less interested in technology than in how much of trying to know a person is observation and how much is reading your own past. The science fiction sits in the background while the house, the snow and the mountains sit in front, and that choice is where the film's strangeness comes from. Kike Maillo's first feature. Daniel Bruhl plays Alex and Claudia Vega plays Eva, with Marta Etura, Alberto Ammann and Lluis Homar in support. It premiered out of competition at the 68th Venice Film Festival on 7 September 2011. At the 26th Goya Awards it took twelve nominations and won three: best new director, best supporting actor and best visual effects. Who it is for: anyone who likes quiet, character-led European science fiction. Who it is not for: anyone expecting tension. The information the film withholds is guessable, the reveal comes late, and the final act builds its emotion mechanically.