Camino (M)

The major Spanish film of the year, it`s been a huge, controversial hit and winner of Goya Awards for Best Film, Director, Screenplay and Actress. Writer/director Javier Fesser has based his film on the case of Alexia Gonzalez-Barros, a devoutly Catholic Spanish girl whose ‘exemplary’ hospital death in 1985 at the age of 14 has become the focus of a cult of sainthood. Fesser is as transfixed as any true believer by the ‘inspiring’ spectacle of a lively young girl – 11-year-old Camino – going happily to her death. It`s her effect on those who surround her, beginning with her pious mother, that renders him livid. — BG