# Teresa (2023 film)
**Teresa** is a 2023 Spanish drama film directed by Paula Ortiz, adapted from Juan Mayorga's play *La lengua en pedazos* (*The Tongue in Pieces*) about Saint Teresa of Ávila. Set in 16th-century Spain, it follows Teresa on the night before the Inquisitor arrives to judge her, when her fate and that of the San José monastery she founded will be decided: freedom, imprisonment, or burning at the stake.[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) The film stars Blanca Portillo as Teresa and Asier Etxeandia as the Inquisitor.[2](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writers | Paula Ortiz; screenplay by Paula Ortiz, Javier García Arredondo, and Juan Mayorga[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) • [2](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/) |
| Source | Film adaptation of Mayorga's play *La lengua en pedazos*, freely inspired by Saint Teresa's *El libro de la vida* (1588)[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) • [3](https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-11-24/teresa-juicio-y-delirio-en-la-cocina-mistica-de-blanca-portillo-y-paula-ortiz.html) |
| Cast | Blanca Portillo (Teresa), Asier Etxeandia (the Inquisitor), Greta Fernández (young Teresa), Ainet Jounou (child Teresa), Consuelo Trujillo (Guiomar)[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/teresa_2023) |
| Production | Spain (80%) and Portugal (20%) co-production; Bluebird Films, Inicia Films, La Lengua en Pedazos AIE, and Nu Boyana[5](https://www.cultura.gob.es/en/cultura/areas/cine/mc/spanish-kaleidoscope/films/winter-spring24/teresa.html) |
| Release | World premiere at SEMINCI 2023 (out of competition); Spanish theatrical release 24 November 2023[6](https://www.seminci.com/en/peliculas/teresa/) • [2](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/) |
| Spanish box office | 189,581.69 € from 31,922 admissions[7](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?pelicula=152420) |
| Awards | Best Actress (Portillo) and Best Actor (Etxeandia) at Cáceres 2024; CiBRA 2023 best film; Forqué and Feroz nominations[2](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/) • [1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and setting
The action takes place in Spain in the 16th century, in a single night and largely in a single conversation. Teresa, a Carmelite nun, reformer, and mystic, has been ostracized for her beliefs and waits for the Inquisitor, who will judge her. His questions and conclusions will determine what happens to the San José monastery, which she worked hard to found with her sisters, and to the nuns who followed her, as well as to Teresa herself.[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) • [8](https://poff.ee/en/film/teresa/) Through the interrogation she struggles through words, memories of her past, fears, doubts, and guilt to try to find her own freedom; the film's tagline is "In contradiction is the gain".[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/)
The ICAA synopsis describes the encounter as a furious dialectical battle about Teresa's life and work, in which the disputants argue over the value of books, words, faith, the size of God, arrogance, disobedience, and the freedom of women.[7](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?pelicula=152420) The kitchen of the convent serves as the stage for the process, a setting drawn from the play and from the tradition of Teresa as a cook; Teresa is quoted as saying "Entre los pucheros anda el Señor" ("Among the pots walks the Lord").[3](https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-11-24/teresa-juicio-y-delirio-en-la-cocina-mistica-de-blanca-portillo-y-paula-ortiz.html)
## Origins in the play
Juan Mayorga's play *La lengua en pedazos*, which won the Premio Nacional de Literatura Dramática in 2013, places the dialectical duel between the writer and the inquisitor, who seeks the closure of her first foundation, the convent of San José, and Teresa's return to orthodoxy, in the convent kitchen.[3](https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-11-24/teresa-juicio-y-delirio-en-la-cocina-mistica-de-blanca-portillo-y-paula-ortiz.html) The play is freely inspired by *El libro de la vida*, Saint Teresa of Ávila's autobiography, and Mayorga himself directed two stage adaptations of it, in 2012 and 2021.[9](https://www.orillas.net/orillas/index.php/orillas/article/view/677) The film screenplay is credited to Paula Ortiz and Javier García Arredondo, with Mayorga also credited as co-writer on some listings.[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) • [2](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/)
The Tallinn Black Nights festival notes that although the film is set in the 16th century, the director instructs viewers to see it in dialogue with the present, and that Saint Teresa of Avila is a historical person but the film is not a factual biography; it is a free interpretation of doubt, belief, and a person's love of faith.[8](https://poff.ee/en/film/teresa/)
## Production and release
Paula Ortiz, born in Zaragoza in 1979, trained at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and UCLA, and had previously directed the features *De tu ventana a la mía* (2011), *La novia* (2015), and *Across the River and Into the Trees* (2021); *Teresa* is her fourth feature film.[6](https://www.seminci.com/en/peliculas/teresa/) Shooting ran from 18 July to 24 August 2022.[10](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/en-us/Peliculas/GetPdf?Pelicula=152420)
The film is a Spain (80%) and Portugal (20%) co-production among Bluebird Films, Inicia Films, La Lengua en Pedazos A.I.E., and Nu Boyana, with support from ICEC, ICAA, the Institut Ramon Llull, and the [Ayuntamiento de Madrid](https://www.edgepedia.org/city-council-of-madrid).[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) • [5](https://www.cultura.gob.es/en/cultura/areas/cine/mc/spanish-kaleidoscope/films/winter-spring24/teresa.html) Rafa García directed the cinematography, Juanma Latorre composed the score, and the film was edited by Estel Román and Pablo Gómez Pan.[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) • [8](https://poff.ee/en/film/teresa/)
It had its world premiere at SEMINCI, the Valladolid International Film Festival, in the official section out of competition in October 2023, and screened in the Official Selection Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.[6](https://www.seminci.com/en/peliculas/teresa/) • [8](https://poff.ee/en/film/teresa/) The ICAA certified the film on 14 November 2023 with a rating of not recommended for audiences under 12.[7](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?pelicula=152420) • [10](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/en-us/Peliculas/GetPdf?Pelicula=152420) The distributor BTeam Pictures and IMDb give the Spanish theatrical release as 24 November 2023, while the ICAA record lists a release date of 20 November 2023.[2](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/) • [11](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12410714/releaseinfo/) • [7](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?pelicula=152420) Runtime listings differ across sources: the ICAA and BTeam give 101 minutes, the Ministry of Culture's Spanish Kaleidoscope catalog gives 97 minutes, SEMINCI gives 100 minutes, and Inicia Films gives 96 minutes.[7](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?pelicula=152420) • [5](https://www.cultura.gob.es/en/cultura/areas/cine/mc/spanish-kaleidoscope/films/winter-spring24/teresa.html) • [6](https://www.seminci.com/en/peliculas/teresa/) • [1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/)
## Reception
In Spain the film earned 189,581.69 € from 31,922 admissions.[7](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?pelicula=152420) At the Festival de Cine Español de Cáceres in 2024, Blanca Portillo won the Best Actress Award and Asier Etxeandia the Best Actor Award.[1](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/) The film won best film at the Festival CiBRA 2023, was nominated for the Forqué Award for Best Female Performance (Portillo) in 2023, and was nominated for the Feroz Arrebato de Ficción award in 2024.[2](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/)
Spanish critics responded to Portillo's performance and Ortiz's visual approach. *El País* described the film as an intricate pulse between image and text in which the convent kitchen becomes the stage for a process judging the saint's imaginative flight before a Church that rejects her singularity, while noting that in its most tortuous and delirious moments it runs aground in its excesses.[3](https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-11-24/teresa-juicio-y-delirio-en-la-cocina-mistica-de-blanca-portillo-y-paula-ortiz.html) *Fotogramas* called it a technically astonishing film that both respects the text and innovates in form.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/teresa_2023) Ortiz later said the film had not received Goya nominations, in contrast to her next film *La virgen roja*, which received nine.[12](https://elpais.com/cultura/2024-12-28/paula-ortiz-cineasta-la-violencia-sexual-no-parara-hasta-que-no-ejerzamos-el-poder-sin-ser-cuestionadas.html)
## References
1. [Teresa, Inicia Films](https://www.iniciafilms.com/en/teresa-eng/)
2. [TERESA, BTeam Pictures](https://bteampictures.es/teresa/)
3. ["'Teresa': juicio y delirio en la cocina mística de Blanca Portillo y Paula Ortiz", Elsa Fernández-Santos, El País, 24 November 2023](https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-11-24/teresa-juicio-y-delirio-en-la-cocina-mistica-de-blanca-portillo-y-paula-ortiz.html)
4. [Teresa (2023), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/teresa_2023)
5. [Teresa, Spanish Kaleidoscope, Ministerio de Cultura](https://www.cultura.gob.es/en/cultura/areas/cine/mc/spanish-kaleidoscope/films/winter-spring24/teresa.html)
6. [TERESA, SEMINCI](https://www.seminci.com/en/peliculas/teresa/)
7. [TERESA, Catálogo de Películas ICAA](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?pelicula=152420)
8. [Teresa, PÖFF, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival](https://poff.ee/en/film/teresa/)
9. [Jessica De Matteis, "Estrategias de adaptación, reescritura y resignificación del texto dramático: La lengua en pedazos...", Orillas, N. 14 (2025)](https://www.orillas.net/orillas/index.php/orillas/article/view/677)
10. [ICAA Film Data PDF, file 152420](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/en-us/Peliculas/GetPdf?Pelicula=152420)
11. [Teresa (2023) Release info, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12410714/releaseinfo/)
12. [Paula Ortiz interview, El País, 28 December 2024](https://elpais.com/cultura/2024-12-28/paula-ortiz-cineasta-la-violencia-sexual-no-parara-hasta-que-no-ejerzamos-el-poder-sin-ser-cuestionadas.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2023 and 2024 › Titles O to Y*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license