From Omeleto.

A woman faces pressure.

Vera is a fledgling photographer trying to get a foothold in her career, and she’s booked a session with Phoenix, a musician with a huge following. When Phoenix shows up with her manager Carl and her team, Vera is eager to collaborate and share her creative ideas.

But tension rises when Phoenix’s overbearing manager tries to get Phoenix to disrobe. Phoenix is reluctant and pushes back, supported by Vera, who doesn’t want to make Phoenix do anything she doesn’t want to do. But Carl pulls Vera aside and tries to enlist her help in getting the images that he thinks will sell — or else he’ll hire another photographer next time. As Vera’s rapport grows with Phoenix, Vera faces a dilemma between her empathy and her livelihood, while Phoenix must choose between conviction and capitulation.

Directed and written by Luis G. Santos, this thoughtful short drama captures the tensions faced by one woman pursuing her dream as a photographer, only to realize how those dreams might come at a cost to other people’s comfort and integrity. Told with an unadorned naturalism and intimacy in the storytelling, it brings us into this pivotal moment in Vera’s life as she navigates this moral and ethical dilemma. It also brings her into the orbit of a woman seemingly higher up in the ladder, navigating the choppy waters of celebrity, visibility and their increasing wear on her sense of what’s right for her.

The film is essentially a double portrait, and one of its achievements is how deftly its writing weaves finely detailed individual portraits of Vera and Phoenix while delineating both parallels and contrasts between them. We meet Vera as she’s rushing to the shoot, talking to her mother, who’s telling her a story about eking out survival during a hard-scrabble childhood; we meet Phoenix as she’s led in by an overly controlling manager and their entourage. They seem to be in different places in life, but as they navigate the currents of tension that arise from Carl’s and Phoenix’s different agendas, Vera and Phoenix discover they are not so different after all.

Their common ground is not just a matter of temperament — both share a cultural background and understanding, as well as a certain thoughtfulness — but it’s also that they face the same structural societal pressures. As Vera and Phoenix, respectively, actors Shanel Montano and Alycia Pascual Pena are well-matched, with a warm rapport and understanding and a certain melancholic undertow in their demeanor, as if weighed down by the compromises and slights they’ve endured to get where they are. As they navigate the pressure of the shoot, Vera sees the compromises she might have to make to keep moving up, while Phoenix starts to realize that no matter how high you get, you still might have to sacrifice something essential to yourself to stay there.

Thoughtfully crafted and emotionally keen, CIERVA is an insightful look into how expectations, pressures and coercions are loaded into everyday life. It is less fascinated in the glamour of its setting and circumstances and more interested in the underpinnings of power underneath, particularly as they’re navigated by two smart, capable women. By featuring them in two different places in their careers, it hints at how necessity makes it easier to compromise at the start — and how the constant tearing at the edges can eventually wear away at a soul.

CIERVA. Courtesy of Luis G. Santos at https://directedbyluis.com.