Bereft on an isolated turkey farm after her husband’s death, 70-year-old Claudina—meek, repressed and adrift—moves into town to live with her daughter and grandson. Despite her strained relationship with her daughter, Claudina experiences an unexpected spark of life when she befriends the dynamic and independent married woman next door, Elsa, who seems to travel paths and make choices Claudina never had the chance to make. But in the gossipy Chilean town of Lautaro, their budding relationship doesn’t stay a secret for long. Just as Claudina sees love’s horizons expanding, she may be forced to choose between the traditional role she understands and the open road ahead of her.

Anchored by a soulful performance by Rosa Ramírez Ríos as Claudina, Forgotten Roads is a tender and constantly surprising journey. Writer-director Nicol Ruiz Benavides adds delightfully offbeat touches—the underground club called “The Future,” where Claudina discovers the town’s hidden community of renegades and misfits; the strange UFO sightings the region is reporting—to weave a delicate, refreshing “coming-of-(older)-age” story brimming with sweetness and vitality.