Tin & Tina 2013

In the early 1980s in Spain, Lola, a pregnant woman, marries Adolfo, the man who is believed to be the father. During their wedding, Lola suffers a miscarriage and is told she cannot have children again, plunging her into a deep depression. To fill the void, Adolfo persuades Lola to adopt children from a nearby convent orphanage, and the two end up adopting Tin Sasha Di Bendetto and Tina Ana Blanco, twins with albinism whose presence feels larger than life for a newly formed family. The twins possess a natural gift for music and a fiercely devoted, almost religious sensibility that unsettles Lola. Although Lola and Adolfo are not religious, they pretend to share the faith to keep the kids happy and settled.

As the twins’ beliefs grow more intense, Lola finds themselves drawn into a world where ritual and discipline crowd out ordinary warmth. They enact biblical games that feel increasingly lethal, and a cruel moment involving Lola’s dog—killed in the name of “cleansing its soul”—suggests a darker imagination at work. When Tin and Tina reach their first communion, a bully from their past falls into a coma. Lola suspects the twins’ involvement, a belief that is hard to prove and even harder for Adolfo to accept, as he seems unfazed by the troubling behavior around him.

New Year’s Eve brings another shock: Lola faints and discovers she is pregnant again, a revelation that fills her with anxiety rather than joy. The twins grow excited at the prospect of a new sibling, while Lola drifts further away from them emotionally. A terrifying scene unfolds when Tin and Tina tie Lola up and attempt to inject her with a potentially poison-filled syringe to “feed the baby.” Lola defends herself with a knife as her labor begins, and she gives birth amid chaos; the twins eagerly announce their desire for the baby to be baptized. Lola refuses, and the children nearly drown the infant in their baptismal attempt, prompting Adolfo to burn their Bible and sever part of the fragile domestic pact they had.

The strain between Lola and Adolfo intensifies. Tin and Tina are sent back to the convent, and questions about their marriage echo through the house. A catastrophic fire soon engulfs the home, killing Adolfo and robbing Lola of her newborn once more. Suspicion falls on the children, driving Lola to question her faith and seek God in a moment of desperation. She nearly harms herself, only to discover her baby alive amid the smoke, and she escapes into the night.

Waking in a hospital, Lola is visited by the convent’s head, who reveals that Adolfo died after being struck by lightning and that Lola and her baby survived—an event framed as a miracle. The head insists that the children have always been innocent, and Lola permits herself to believe it. The film ends at Adolfo’s funeral, with Lola choosing to adopt Tin and Tina once again, signaling a cautious step toward rebuilding a family with the two enigmatic siblings.