One of the many wonders of cinema is its ability to inspire debates about what we see and live. To leave transformed after watching a function, that something of ours remains in the film and something of the film inside us. And the Mar del Plata Festival is a meeting point for hundreds of stories that disembark with views on our society and, specifically, on the stereotypes that still weigh on women, bonds and desire.
In this last edition, which ended last weekend, motherhood was one of the topics that were put on the table. From Filo.news we were present and in this note we tell you three films that addressed the subject from different perspectives. Which ones would you add to the list?
1. “Manuela”
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The film follows Manuela (Barbara Lombardo), who gets a job as a nanny for a mother who is often absent for work. Taking care of the child of the home, little Alma, Manuela builds little by little an affective bond with her.
Thanks to a panopticon of webcams, Alma’s mother tries not to lose contact with her daughter while traveling, but the devices can not cope with the bodily complicity between Alma and her nanny, who in turn cannot communicate with her daughter because of incompatible time zones.
“Caring for a baby is the nicest and most difficult thing and as a mother, having a person who takes care of your daughter is a responsibility and the largest delegation. I don’t take it as a work that is in the shadows, but as a place of great light,” the film’s director, Clara Cullen, said at a press conference.
“It is a very important place occupied by nannies, sisters, aunts, many women sometimes fulfill the role of mothering, caring, a fundamental role, a lot of appreciation and respect,” said the protagonist. The film thus represents an intimate portrait of the bonds that are generated between women and children, through a work as feminized as care.2. “Something that happened in the new year”
The story follows Maria and Manuel, who will go to spend New Year’s Eve at the house of their sister and her partner and will take the opportunity to ask them for a favor linked to the possibility of having a daughter.
But this is only the beginning of their misadventures: very strange things happen in that house. Little by little, the visit and the film begin to transform into a real nightmare. “Why have a child?” asks one of the protagonists of the film, which focuses on being the desire to be a mother from a look of terror.
This is the debut film by Jorge Pinarello, creator of the YouTube channel Te lo resumo así nomás, while the cast stars Natalia Maldini, Casper Uncal, Xiomara Martínez, Federico Aimetta, Chapi Barres.
“There is ‘Waiting for the Float’ and a mixture of horror movies that I like, I was interested in the idea of mixing those two worlds, seeing what would happen if the Argentine characters are in a sect,” Pinarello said at a press conference.3. “The Prodigy”
The film follows a nurse who is sent to a small Irish town to unravel a mystery that the community says is miraculous: a girl is still alive even though she hasn’t tasted a bite for months.
The patient assures that the reason why she does not suffer consequences is divine, but the nurse begins to defy the faith of both the girl and all the inhabitants of the village.
The film debates motherhood from a social, religious, moral perspective. It stars Florence Pugh, Tom Burke, Toby Jones, Kila Lord Cassidy, Elaine Cassidy.
“It is an investigation into the function of stories in our lives, the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we collectively co-create, religions, ideologies, myths about our societies,” director Sebastián Lelio said in an interview with El Cine en la Ser.
