In Simón, Venezuelan director Diego Vicentini crafts a visceral and politically charged drama about exile, memory, and the unfinished business of revolution. The film follows Simón, a young Venezuelan activist who flees to Miami after being imprisoned and tortured for his role in anti-government protests. But freedom abroad doesn’t mean liberation — not from trauma, nor from the moral pull of those left behind.

Told with intimate urgency, Simón captures the emotional dissonance of political exile: the guilt of survival, the weight of choice, and the complex identity of a generation torn between two countries. While the U.S. offers the promise of safety and legal asylum, Simón wrestles with the possibility that his physical escape might mean abandoning the fight that shaped him.

Vicentini’s storytelling is personal — he himself is part of the diaspora — and the film resonates deeply with real footage from Venezuelan protests, seamlessly blended with fictional narrative. This gives Simón both immediacy and authenticity, grounding its drama in the ongoing sociopolitical crisis of Venezuela.

The lead performance by Christian McGaffney is emotionally restrained yet potent, embodying a young man fractured between past and present, purpose and survival. Simón is not only a personal story but also a bold statement — about memory as resistance and cinema as testimony.