The new directors change the script of motherhood in the cinema

They share a passion for deciphering the complex bonds between mothers and daughters on screen. Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, Estibaliz Urresola, Celia Rico and Elena Trapé are part of the new wave of filmmakers who join the well-known Carla Simon. Directors (and also screenwriters), who approach motherhood with its contradictions and its less accommodating and naive face.

Today the portrait of these fictional mothers is drawn by those who live it up close, they affirm, and not only by the men who observe, as was usual. The vision is different because finally they are the ones who tell their reality and provide nuances that until today were not central on screen. It is a less romantic image, because the experience has a full impact on the woman’s life, and affects unpleasant aspects such as losing part of her personal space.

Estibaliz Urresola believes that “there has been a lack of a fair and comprehensive portrait of female characters in the cinema. Perhaps I have felt that deficit as a spectator. We now celebrate this wealth of complex, brave or vulnerable women in fiction.”

Elena Trapé is proud of her approach to motherhood in Els encantats: faced with a break-up, she focuses on how the mother (played, as in Cinco lobitos, by Laia Costa) is affected by the absence of her daughter when she lives with the father.

Instead, 20,000 species of bees addresses a reality that was taboo until recently: being the mother of a trans child. Urresola recalls that “the trigger was the suicide of a 14-year-old trans boy. It went through me hard. I contacted an association of families with transgender children and weaved my story from their testimonies”.

By drawing the mother, he wanted to “avoid a woman who, due to her conservatism, would find it difficult to accept her son. But, despite being an open woman who gives her son freedom to express himself, she escapes from her that more than a feminine child, it is a girl who waits to be seen and gathers her tools to expose her identity. ”.

The female cinema label, sometimes associated with small films, does not convince them. “I just don’t know what it means. It seems simplistic to me”, says the author of Els encantats. “Yes, it is true that we narrate from another perspective and sensitivity. And that certainly enriches ”. In Urresola’s opinion, “although there are men who approach the female portrait with truth and respect, now, as there are more female directors, fictional women are much more diverse. We show how we experience motherhood or perceive it in friends, sisters and as daughters. You understand that your mother was also a daughter and you see how we reproduce patterns”.

In her opinion, “we are heirs to a very patriarchal vision of motherhood and for this reason we have surely had a more demanding view of our mother and a more benevolent view of our father, somewhat idealized, as in my film. Then you become an adult and read and adjust more precisely your family dynamics.

On the issue of female cinema, Rico sees it as difficult to differentiate by gender, since social, cultural, and generational factors influence each creator. “When Agnès Varda was asked if she made feminist cinema, she replied that she simply stood by women”.

“There are also men who deal with these stories,” adds Ruiz de Azúa. It is true that there has been a first wave in which we have opted for this type of stories. And I love this cinema, but I think it is the first stage of a process of change. At first, if you can’t find a story, you generate it. In a few years, I am convinced that we will see fiction directed by intimate women and another not so intimate, like theirs”.

While on screen they draw various maternity homes, in real life those who have children reconcile as best they can, with a job that takes them away from home during filming and promotion. “Sometimes I council and other times I don’t. I often sacrifice sleep and need a support network if a project comes up that involves very long working hours. A suggestion: this question must also be asked of them. Reconciliation does not exclusively affect women”, points out Ruiz de Azúa.

It is a structural problem, not of the sector. “The decision to become a mother involves brutal stress, it has a lot of importance in our lives. They call me colleagues who want to be mothers and ask me how I do it. I have a 10-year-old daughter and my job is a roller coaster. If they call me for a project, I’m happy and at the moment overwhelmed because I won’t see her for many days. I suffer, I miss myself. I have the help of my parents, luckily. My daughter’s father, who also works in the cinema, has never been asked what he will do with the girl when they call him for a job, like me ”.

Urresola has no children yet: “But I do have many nephews and mother friends and I know how complicated it is.” Rico is not a mother either, and she highlights the social deficit around care that harms women. “As my cinema explores mother-child ties, the question of care is central. It is care that pulls the world and life, historically it has been assumed by women and it is something that goes unnoticed, that is taken for granted. And taking it for granted is not taking care of who she cares for ”.

An urgent problem, when so many women consider whether or not to be mothers. “There is no recognition or structure to care for lives, children, the elderly and even oneself. With this scenario, many women of my generation decided not to have children. And I don’t know how much of a personal or circumstantial decision there is.”

Beyond themes and approaches, if the creators share something it is the complicity and good harmony between them, the fact that they feel more collective than competitive. “Very in favor of sorority. They had made us believe in the rivalry between us, nothing more absurd and macho”, adds Trapé.