23/10/2024 - The Spanish director talks about her latest film, an exploration of bodily, reproductive and social autonomy around women who don't want to be mothers

Spanish director Liliana Torres talks about her latest film Mamífera [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Liliana Torres
film profile], an exploration of bodily, reproductive and social autonomy around women who don't want to be mothers. The film, which had its premiere at SXSW (where its star Maria Rodríguez Soto won a special jury award for her performance), is now in the midst of its film festival tour after having visited San Sebastian (in the Made in Spain section), the São Paulo Film Festival and the Warsaw Film Festival.

Cineuropa: Mamífera touches on very personal and complex issues of motherhood and identity. What made you want to explore these aspects in the film?
Liliana Torres: Mamífera come out of a personal motivation that becomes social as I get older. I always knew that I didn't want to be a mother and this will that I’ve kept over the years, was questioned and viewed with some suspicion. The lack of positive or normalised role models for women who didn’t want to be mothers in literature, and especially in film, contributed to this stigmatisation. Even more so when they dared to use non-mothers in clichés and stereotypes such as “the bitter woman who hates children, the ambitious masculine-like executive”, etc. Personal guilt arising from questions such as “do I have a problem?”, “any trauma?”, “am I unnatural?”, became a need to find sociological explanations for this stigmatisation. It is from this research and personal experience that Mamífera came about. 

Your film has been in several international film festivals such as SXSW and San Sebastian, and is now travelling to others including São Paulo and Warsaw. What has the public's response been like, and what do you expect from those who have yet to discover it, particularly the Latin American public? Do you believe that the cultural context influences how the film is interpreted?
The response has mostly been positive. At the screenings the audience was touched at the end of the film. On social media we have had a very positive response from many of the people who have seen the film on platforms since August. And then the issue creates a debate that we love to see.

The cultural context influences the film, of course; but the disquisition in which almost all women find themselves at some point in their lives about the decision to become mothers or not, is transversal. We were recently at the International Images Film Festival in Zimbabwe and the reception of the film was just as intense there. The questions in the panel discussion were much like those we have heard elsewhere. I think the issue that changes the most depending on the cultural context is abortion, an option so politicised and used as a weapon, that it seems contaminated by many cultural layers. I would love for the Ibero-American audience to enjoy the film, Mamífera is a bright and sad film. It's a journey and I would love for the audience to travel with it, and if they also come away thinking that the decision not to be a mother can be just as “natural” or “normal” as the decision to be a mother, then it will be a success.

Mamífera uses an introspective narrative and a quasi-documentary approach. What challenges did you face when working with this aesthetic and how did it influence your creative process and your relationship with the actors and production team?
I wanted Mamífera to reflect a reality, a socio-cultural context present in our lives and this required us to choose the right houses and neighbourhoods for each character, etc. Building the film from reality and adapting to it. For example, Lola and Bruno live in a traditional working-class neighbourhood where there were very few facilities for filming, but it was necessary for the film. The same thing happened with the protagonists' apartment. I wanted it to be a small apartment in Montbau [a neighbourhood in Barcelona]. This meant having a smaller team because we couldn't all fit and explaining to the team how we were going to organise ourselves in there, where there were also going to be children and a blind dog.

In terms of the working method, we always shot only what we needed, or even less. It really helped that we had rehearsal time with the actors beforehand. We always thought of the film in a natural and temperate way, which is why we chose a planning that approached realism calmly, with no acrobatics.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)