“What We Know”: Those College Days

The youthful years are usually a constant source of inspiration for fictional stories, proof of which are the short films by Jordi Núñez. The young Valencian filmmaker has already explored the relationship problems of twenty-somethings in ‘Amor de Dios’, ‘Cachitos’ and ‘Píxeles’. In a way, the spirit of his short films is inside his debut, ‘What we know’which arrives in commercial halls after being seen in the Official Section of the Mostra de Valencia 2022.

‘What We Know’ begins with Carla, a young Venezuelan who works as a waitress at a beach restaurant. The 20-year-old is studying psychology at the University of Valencia and it soon turns out that the reason she landed in Levante is linked to the fact that she and her mother are protected by the police for having been victims of sexist violence. While the film could have followed that dramatic vein, Núñez, who also opts for the story closest to costumbrismo, with a certain bucolic look.

This movement is intelligent, because FrWe see how the young woman is rebuilding her life and how she wants the trauma of the past not to mark her future. Furthermore, the film shows a very dramatic situation, since Carla’s mother is ill with cancer, which forces her to work more overtime while trying to graduate. Núñez has that social element, but chooses to tell a story closer to the experiences of youthproving that the university wants, despite adversity, to continue living.

A remarkable debut

It’s that factor where the tape grows the most since then the story Núñez tells is a depiction of how friendships are made or broken in the college stage, especially in a city like Valencia, the provincial capital, which also reflects the doubts of a group of twenty-somethings who want to continue living in the city but are debating whether to risk moving to another city like Barcelona or Madrid. What is also striking is how Núñez forges the emotional bonds between this group of friends, especially when between Víctor, Carla’s love interest, and Marina, her best friendliving in a sort of ambivalent relationship.

It is this relationship, which can be considered toxic, that adds more complexity to the tape, in which the mistakes of youth are seen. and also the teachings that life experience itself gives. This is where the importance of distribution comes into play. Their four main actors are right, especially Nakarey Fernández and Javier Amann, which play beautifully respectively moving forward in the face of bad luck or giving up early because they know there is a safety net behind it. Both represent two sides of the same coin.

Núñez knows how to create an extraordinary film with few resourceswhich demonstrates the talent of a director who has the ability to capture emotions and know how to convey them with an ensemble cast with whom he had already worked, which denotes a previous trust in which a long-standing professional relationship can be glimpsed. A good debut from a director with a unique sensitivity.

Note: 8

The best: The feeling of naturalness that each scene conveys.

Worse: Its ending is too bittersweet.