Ainara is an idealistic and brilliant 17-year-old, and everyone assumes she will soon be choosing a university course and mapping out an illustrious future.

What her family does not expect is her announcement that she feels increasingly close to God — and that she is contemplating life as a cloistered nun. The news creates a chasm, putting everyone to the test.

Los Domingos rests on a fascinatingly inverted premise: at a moment when religion is so often cast as a force of female submission, a young woman's absolute determination to enter the Church becomes an act of radical self-determination — one that her secular, progressive family struggles to accept.

Shot in director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa's native Bilbao in characteristically muted tones, the film's visual sobriety is entirely deliberate. "The tension of the movie is built on two very different and extreme points of view," the director has explained. "I wanted to treat every character as equal. That's why the camera is so sober — it creates a distance that allows the viewer to judge for themselves."

Los Domingos won the Golden Shell at San Sebastián and went on to dominate the 40th Goya Awards, taking five prizes including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. In doing so, Ruiz de Azúa became only the fourth woman to win the Goya for Best Director in the award's four-decade history, joining Isabel Coixet, Icíar Bollaín, and Pilar Miró.