“Salt Water” explores everyone’s role in a taboo topic

With subtlety and powerful acting, Salt Water tackles the controversial subject of priests grooming altar boys using the sympathy that can only come from personal experience. Described as “inspired by true events and some that may very well be,” the sincere and emotionally touching debut feature from Colombian writer-director Steven Morales Pineda was released on major digital platforms in the U.S. and Canada on June 24, 2025, by Breaking Glass Pictures, following its powerful festival premiere at the 2024 Miami Film Festival.

It’s a subject that’s more conveniently ignored, an instinctive reaction that perhaps in reality exacerbates its incidence. Instead, Salt Water discloses what is typically hidden, bringing out into the open what most prefer to conceal, exploring the suffering that can come from the intricacies of human relationships. And it does this with empathy for everyone involved. The viewer feels a part of these real people living real lives.

Salt Water follows Jacobo (Luis Mario Jiménez), a young man grappling with a troubled history. He tracks down José Luis (Óskar Salazar Ruiz), a Catholic priest accused of child abuse and on the verge of leaving the priesthood. Their tense encounter forces Jacobo to face the source of his emotional scars, resulting in a stark and disturbing reunion marked by lingering trauma, suppressed longing, and a profound crisis of faith.

Everyone’s role and everyone’s pain is evident. Jacobo and his family and friends are all involved and all affected.

The film is so well crafted, from its dialogue that is like a play in which every word is poignant, to its sets that represent more than just their actual setting, such as the penultimate scene in which Jacobo confronts José Luis through a door seemingly representative of a confessional screen. The confrontation is heart-wrenching as 30 something Jacobo finally addresses José Luis as he’s wanted to since third grade.

Even Jacobo’s facial hair symbolizes so much from beginning to end. “I almost didn’t recognize you with all that hair on your face,” José Luis says to Jacobo when they see each other again after many years. It’s there and it’s obvious, almost like a teenage boy’s first attempt at growing a beard.

The symbolism of Jacobo’s facial hair culminates in an intensely emotional scene in which Jacobo invites José Luis to shave his beard along with him, taking his hand and guiding it as it removes his masculinity, symbolically minimizing his manliness back into boyishness. Jacobo literally invites and directs his own grooming at the hands of José Luis.

Both are troubled, but in different ways — José Luis by the guilt and responsibility he suppresses and Jacobo by a broken heart and a longing that is only diminished when he is in the presence of José Luis, the only times he truly seems happy. Jacobo the yoga instructor appears to be living the most grounded life, but his pain is most evident, while José Luis seems to have left the past in the past but in reality hasn’t yet faced it or dealt honestly with it.

I applaud writer-director’s Steven Morales Pineda’s work bringing into the open the true and raw emotions that come from such a painful subject. Nothing is resolved. What’s lost is lost, as Jacobo’s mother says when a wayward ball rolls under the house. But the reality is that the resulting stolen innocence and in some cases the broken hearts, as in the case of Jacobo, must not be hidden but rather must be disclosed.

A bible verse seemingly selected at random is not. “The bible is like music. It doesn’t matter what song is playing. It always speaks to you on some level,” José Luis says in defense of reading the bible. So Jacobo grabs the priest’s bible, randomly opens it, and reads: “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to bring out into the open.”

Salt Water does so with heart and with the sympathy that can only come from personal experience. Of course, as the film is in Spanish, its nuances and emotions conveyed through language will be more pronounced for those who understand the language and don’t have to rely on the subtitles. However, those watching with subtitles will see the interpretations of background conversations that would probably be lost on someone just watching in its original language.

The film is interestingly structured not in scenes or chapters but in weekly spiritual retreats — “Principle and Foundation,” “The Calling,” “Mystery of the Passion,” “A Cross in the Heart,” and “He Is Not Here; He Has Risen.” There’s even a shout out to Jaime Manrique’s novel Como Esta Tarde Para Siempre that recounts the true Colombian love story about two seminarians who fall in love.

This and so much more await the viewers who dare delve into this taboo topic along with Steven Morales Pineda. Don’t miss Salt Water for a deep dive into a heartfelt journey nobody wants to take but unfortunately many do.