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TIFF Review: OCA (Karla Badillo, 2025)

Posted on
4 Oct 2025
by
Paul

What does it mean to have faith? That’s the question that OCA delves into with its tale of young nun Rafaela, who embarks on a quest to find the new Archbishop and ask for his help in saving her faltering congregation.

Early on, we see that Rafaela herself is having a crisis of faith, spurred on by her perhaps prophetic dreams. God doesn’t make mistakes, one of her fellow nuns tells her. “He doesn’t make mistakes,” she replies, “But maybe He changes His mind.” But while Rafaela may be having her doubts, to borrow a phrase from The X-Files, she wants to believe.

As the film follows its protagonist on her journey, director Karla Badillo examines the notions of faith and perseverance through Rafaela’s interactions with an assorted cast of characters she meets along the way, including a well-to-do woman, a group who are also on a pilgrimage to see the Archbishop, and a soldier who’s having his own version of a crisis of faith – as he’s told by a superior to follow orders (which come “from above”) and not ask questions, the parallels between his story and Rafela’s become evident.

In many way, Rafaela’s quest to find the Archbishop is akin to a more grounded version of Dorothy’s journey along the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz. In both cases, a young woman sets off in an unfamiliar land in the hopes of finding the man who she hopes can solve all her troubles, meeting several colourful characters along the way. However, Dorothy Gale never faltered in her belief that she needed to make it home to Kansas whereas Rafaela, for all her talk of God’s plan, remains full of doubt on whether those plans could change. And the solution to all of her problems won’t be as simple as clicking her heels together.

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