Carlos López Estrada’s Summertime is a glorious film – a vibrant, joyous, and energetic ode to art, creativity, and that earnest sincerity and passion for justice and equity that seems to define young people in their late teens and early twenties. Even though the film is comprised of a series of vignettes anchored by spoken word poetry, it’s astonishing to see how effortlessly the sequences weave in and out of one another, how narrative through lines emerge, and how perfectly certain beats and moments echo one another throughout the film. López Estrada shoots and edits the film with as much energy and life as the poetry (and the city) that he’s capturing, and all of the first-time film actors are stunning – not just in performing their own work onscreen, but also in building and performing the characters they present within the film. This is one of the most delightful and moving films of the year – a film that begins with isolation and loneliness, and ends with a true sense of community and connectedness.