Sister and Sister
“As a Panamanian-Chilean co-production with a Costa Rican filmmaker at the helm, diversity among Latinos organically takes place in Sister and Sister.”
Title: Sister and Sister (2023) / Spanish: Las hijas
Director: Kattia G. Zúñiga 👩🏽🇨🇷
Writer: Kattia G. Zúñiga 👩🏽🇨🇷
Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸
Technical: 2.75/5
Writer-director Kattia G. Zúñiga gives audiences a peek behind the curtain in her semi-autobiographical debut film, Sister and Sister. Taking place during a languid Panamanian summer, two young women, 17-year-old Marina (Cala Rossel Campos) and her little sister Luna (Ariana Chaves Gavilán), 14, leave Costa Rica to look for their absent father in Panama. There, they stay with a friend of their mother’s and quickly embed in the social lives of her teen kids, Sol (Gabriela Man) and León (Joshua De León).
At its best, the film sets a palpable mood. Anyone who’s ever spent a week or two abroad as a teenager will find resonance in the heightened emotions and ephemerality of Sister and Sister, helped in large part by Alejo Crisóstomo’s naturalistic cinematography: Lush and vivid greenery contrasts against muted, sunbleached buildings. Closeups on Marina and Luna reveal teen angst and horniness, expressed through curious self-exploration and meaningful glances at local boys—some returned, some not.
But under this immersive setting sits a very straightforward story. Predictable beats, paired with an unhurried pace, equals a movie you wish would move along faster. Every stretch between plot points feels like an age. Perhaps it needed stronger panache, or a more layered script—whatever secret ingredient it is that Sister and Sister lacks, this 80-minute movie winds up feeling somehow both half-formed and interminable. Not unlike the humid, yearning summers of our pasts, I suppose.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
Written and directed by a female filmmaker, Zúñiga shares in press notes that her film is based on her own experiences. It stands to reason, then, that Sister and Sister uses the female gaze in this tale of teen sexuality. Viewers get to know Marina and Luna as people first, so that we’re able to contextualize the casual sex, kissing, and crushes they go through rather than having such acts define them.
No clearer can it be made that we’re watching a woman’s story than seeing the sexual harassment that women like Marina, Luna, and Sol go through, complicating their journeys of self-empowerment as men exert their own desires upon them, up to and including yelling explicit things at them from a car on the street. During every moment of the film, we exist in this world as young women, complete with all the vulnerabilities and strengths that entails.
Race: 5/5
This Panamanian-Chilean co-production has a Panamanian and Costa Rican filmmaker at the helm, making Sister and Sister a distinctly Latin American story. Diversity among Latinos organically takes place: Differences between Costa Ricans and Panamanians are affectionately brought up, for example. In one scene, Marina and Luna are called “the Ticas” by a teen skater—a casual term for Costa Ricans. In another, Luna calls home to her mother and slides in the word “supposedly,” one she catches herself doing and chuckles as she explains, “it's just they say ‘supposedly’ here a lot, I must have picked it up.”
Furthermore, this isn’t a Latino film that erases Afro-Latinos. Black characters make up part of Sol’s friend group and overall, the cast ranges widely in skin color and hair textures, ensuring a realistic portrait of Latinos rather than the whitewashed version that happens all too readily in Hollywood movies or telenovelas.
Mediaversity Grade: B+ 4.25/5
For an authentic dip into Panamanian teen culture from the perspectives of young Costa Rican women, you could do much worse than Sister and Sister. The art direction particularly shines, and even if it’s just to sit in the hazy heat of a summer vacation for a little while, that’s a good enough reason to tune in.
Like Sister and Sister? Try these other titles featuring Latin American teens.
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