Gloria

In Solano’s magnetic and oblique English-language debut, a 20-year-old Colombian immigrant navigates gritty Kodachrome-era New York City. Gloria documents her new life with a Kodak Instamatic and cuts slides in a photo lab, a job that “allowed her to imagine other lives.” She’s deeply disturbed, though, when she gets a batch of slides that depict acts of bestiality, and becomes fearful of what she’ll see each time she processes another customer’s photos. Gloria’s story is told decades later by her son, the narrator, who’s attempting to make sense of her life by reflecting on the events of a fateful Saturday in April 1970, when Gloria attempts to get her mind off the slides by attending a concert at Madison Square Garden with her boyfriend, Tigre. After the concert, she recognizes one of the women from the bestiality photos on the street; later that night, Tigre steps out and never comes back. As the narrator unravels these two mysteries, he reflects on how they impacted Gloria’s life over the following decades, interspersing scenes from her subsequent unhappy marriage and new career with a lingerie company. It’s a vivid snapshot of rosy youth and innocence lost. Agent: María Juncosa, Casanovas & Lynch. (Apr.)