Oriana 1985

Maria, a Venezuelan woman Daniela Silverio returns to Venezuela from France when she learns that her aunt Oriana Doris Wells has died and willed her a crumbling and remote Venezuelan hacienda where Maria spent a short time as a girl just entering puberty. She travels to the hacienda, a grand yet decaying old house set in a lush tropical jungle at the edge of the sea, to prepare the place for sale; while visiting, Maria wanders through the halls and rooms and begins to remember her visit years before. As she combs through Oriana’s papers, she uncovers clues about her aunt’s behavior that hint at hidden histories and secrets long buried.

Maria is haunted by flashbacks to her childhood, when she spent several months at the hacienda in the company of only the beautiful and mysterious Oriana and Fidelia [Mirtha Borges], a quarrelsome old retainer who constantly hints at terrible events that are best forgotten. In these memories, the film reveals the quiet but strange atmosphere that surrounds the place, and Maria grapples with questions about why Oriana never leaves the hacienda and what secrets may lie in Oriana’s past. The young Maria imagines Oriana’s youth, a cruel father Asdrúbal Meléndez, and first love, weaving together memory and imagination as the line between them blurs.

After these reveries within reveries, Maria, now a grown woman, makes a pivotal discovery by connecting strands of the past with present clues, finding evidence that someone unseen may still be living nearby in the vicinity. This revelation deepens the sense that the hacienda is not merely a place of memories but a presence that persists beneath the surface. With this new understanding, Maria faces a choice shaped by duty, longing, and the echo of the past, ultimately deciding not to sell the house and to preserve its history rather than erase it.