Sasha Merci, left, and Darlen Demorizi in De Lo Mio (BAM)

The 11th annual BAMcinemaFest at the Brooklyn Academy of Music closes with something special. For more than a week, the festival has presented a preview of what’s to come at a theater or platform near you this summer, such as the documentaries Jawline, on the ephemeral careers of teen vlogger superstars, and Vision Portraits, a sensitive examination of artists navigating their careers while blind, as well as the cryptic feature film The Mountain. These movies have been playing the U.S. festival circuit since January, but BAMcinemaFest can boast of its own discovery, the world premiere of director Diana Peralta’s debut film De Lo Mio, a fine family drama of regret and remembrance that concludes the festival on a high yet melancholic note.

Packing a lot of plot in just 73 minutes, the narrative opens with sisters Carolina (Darlene Demorizi) and Rita (Sasha Merci), born and raised in New York City, returning to their late father’s hometown in the Dominican Republic. They have come to help their elder half-brother, Dante (Héctor Aníbal), clean out the family’s once solidly middle-class home. They have five days to clear it out before it is to be sold and knocked down. Its only value lies in the land it stands upon. Over the years, the blended family has drifted apart—Carolina and Rita have never met Dante’s adolescent son, and Dante has never left the island.

Realizing that this will be their final visit, Carolina and Rita take everything in, as does the camera, panning up the looming network of mango trees that provide a canopy for the backyard. The family is nearly upstaged by the verdant setting, which becomes the backdrop for the flare-ups between the sisters and Dante, whose bitterness bubbles up with little provocation.

The film passes one crucial test for a family drama; the three leads act as if they are actually from the same family. Switching from English to Spanish, they share a casual familial rapport. There’s an intimacy in their physicality in how they react to each other that goes far beyond the sisters washing each other’s hair or sleeping in the same bed. (As defined by the director, the movie’s title is a term of endearment for those closest to you.) Through conversational put-downs, whether in jest or going for the jugular, the twenty- and thirtysomething siblings air out some dirty laundry, especially in a scene where two sisters have had a lot to drink, but much is left up to the viewer on what happened to divide the family.

Under Peralta’s assured and unfussy direction, the film also doubles as a memory piece. While cleaning out the living room, Carolina plays an old 45 of a childhood favorite, circa 1950s-1960s, and all three begin to move, somewhat haltingly and then freely, each caught up in a solo reverie. Instead of becoming an obligatory group bonding dance number, the scene avoids the forced cheeriness that’s typical of onscreen bonding. The film’s tone is too rueful for that.

De Lo Mio screens on June 22 at BAMcinemaFest.