Murcia’s Alvaro López Alba’s ECAM-Developed Debut Feature ‘Three Summer Days’ Explores Family Dynamics

In Álvaro López Alba’s “Three Summer Days” (“Tres días de verano”), a vacationing family’s dissimilar takes on an event threatens to drive them apart. It follows a father and his two kids on a beach holiday, the young girl, Cris, has fallen for a boy, causing a rift in her friendship with pal Miri. Her brother Dani, feeling isolated, spends the summer confined to his room, fixated on Miri.

Meanwhile, their father is engaged in a secret affair he desperately tries to conceal from them. Over these three days at the beach, the family will struggle to reconnect as insecurities, jealousy and hidden truths unravel their close-knit world.

“I’ve based the story on personal experiences and that of my family and people around me,” López Alba told Variety, who only started making short films some six years ago, and in earnest just three years ago.

Given his experience as a psychologist, dealing in particular with youth, he has gathered copious material that have fueled the three shorts he has made so far: “Rosebud,” “La Mancha” and “Eli.” “Three Summer Days” is his debut feature.

Developed at the Incubator program of the Madrid Film School (ECAM), “Three Summer Days” is one of 10 projects in development that participated in the ECAM Forum, the inaugural co-production showcase of the prominent Madrid Film School last June. Family drama also took part in the EGEDA Next Gen FilmLab where it won the Best Project award. 

“The structure of this film, in which we revisit the events of a weekend three times and from three different perspectives, creates a sort of everyday thriller, where our prejudices and expectations are continuously confronted with a more complex familiar reality, sometimes dark and other times bright. It is a film of strange atmospheres where cruelty and tenderness always go hand in hand,” said producer Nuria Muñoz of Nexus CreaFilms, who first collaborated with López Alba when she produced his third short, “Eli.”

López Alba drew inspiration from the narrative structure of Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” and even more closely to “Monster” by Kore-eda Hirokazu, which won the Best Screenplay and Queer Palm at the Cannes Festival and vied for the Sebastiane Best Film Award at last year’s San Sebastian Festival. In “Monster,” a mother suspects something is wrong at her child’s school and confronts his teacher. As the story unfolds from their different viewpoints, the truth gradually emerges.

According to Muñoz, they will likely shoot the film in Murcia where she and López Alba reside. They hope to tap the regional, state and federal funds available. Since a year ago, Murcia has been offering aid to non-Murcia residents who aim to shoot either features or series in the region. This is in addition to existing incentives for shorts, development, production and distribution for Murcia residents. The new incentive has enticed a growing number of projects, said Muñoz.

For Nexus CreaFilms’ first feature, “Sorda” (“Deaf”), which shot last summer, its lead partners were Catalan production companies A Contracorriente and Distinto Films, so they were able to tap the new shooting incentive.

Directed by Eva Libertad, “Sorda” turns on a woman whose pregnancy stirs up fears about motherhood and whether she will be able to communicate with her child.

For “Three Summer Days,” co-producer Sideral Cinema hails from Madrid and Nexus CreaFilms has been in talks with potential partners from other territories since the ECAM Forum.