Valentina Maurel • Director of Forever Your Maternal Animal
“I still resist the idea that fiction is there to depict a linear path”
- CANNES 2026: We talked with the filmmaker who continues to put Costa Rica on the map of arthouse cinema, as she takes us on the journey of a young woman returning to San José
Having first made a name for herself at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017 with her short film Paul is Here, which won first prize in the Cinéfondation section, and then in 2019 with another short film, Lucia en el limbo, selected in Critics’ Week, Valentina Maurel returns to the Croisette with Forever Your Maternal Animal. She talks to us about this second feature, in which she continues to explore her obsessions and her cinematic style.
Cineuropa: What inspired this project?
Valentina Maurel: I wrote this film whilst thinking a great deal about my first film; I was frustrated that I hadn’t developed certain characters further in the script, and that I’d sacrificed others during editing, particularly everything relating to the maternal and domestic world, and the relationship with the sister. And as my films are character-driven, it was a difficult sacrifice to make. I wanted to explore the relationship between a mother and her two daughters as well as between two sisters, all of this set in their country of origin. I started writing just after I had my daughter, at a time when I was asking myself a lot of questions about what it might mean to juggle being an artist and a mother, to build a body of work and a life without sacrificing one or the other.
Elsa is our guide; we return to San José with her.
Elsa gave me quite a bit of a hard time. She’s the main character, but I didn’t want her to follow a linear path that might give the impression she’d learnt something from life. I still resist the idea that fiction is there for that purpose. She returns home and then decides to leave again. I also wanted her to represent the tendency that Costa Ricans sometimes have – those who leave and come back, and who feel they’ve learnt something from another world that works better, and want to apply that to Costa Rica to fix it. That said, I certainly didn’t want her to be hated, especially as audiences often judge female characters more harshly, particularly when they’re seen as having loose morals. At the same time, whilst writing, I thought it was refreshing to have a heroine with major flaws — like many male characters, really — a girl who’s a bit lost, but who owns it. I didn’t want a character who was all sunshine and roses, to put it simply. She’ll leave without having fixed anything and that’s fine.
Whether it’s Elsa or her sister Amalia, they are on the cusp of adulthood, yet find themselves faced with adults who are clinging to their own youth.
It was already present in my other films; for me, the very concept of adulthood has long been banished from my mind. As for those parents chasing after their youth, I don’t judge them… I think the film talks about motherhood as a role that one either takes on or doesn’t, something quite performative. Elsa decides to take on this role, even though nobody asked her to, just when her own mother wants to let go of it. All this in the face of Amalia, who doesn’t want to be mothered, at least not like that.
Amalia and Elsa do not seek the same things in life.
They come from an artistic family, where there is a kind of idealisation of academic intelligence, which acts as a form of social pressure. Judgement and condescension become a form of violence, set against the background of a country where there is very strong social polarisation. Amalia is someone who decides not to pursue higher education, despite the pressure, in a world where all the role models are in crisis. It is a form of emancipation, even if it is strange and may seem contradictory.
The film is set against the backdrop of the city’s chaos.
It wasn’t particularly difficult; the city is chaotic. We chose to film with a small crew, shooting outdoors as much as possible. I was very angry after my first film when I learnt that Costa Rican viewers had said I’d presented a gloomy view of the city because I was from Europe, when that’s exactly what I hate. So I filmed in the neighbourhood where I grew up to establish my legitimacy. I remember a scene shot on a very busy street, where the actresses were called whores. It was important to show that there is a joyful chaos, and also a hostile chaos. I wanted to resist that violence by asserting that this is a place of cinema, it’s the place I come from, and it’s a place I love. And then our country has a very touristy image, of flora and fauna, of eco-tourism; it’s a front, but there’s also something else behind the walls of the house. For Costa Rican viewers, I wanted to show the city without judging it and without sugar-coating it. I wanted to move away from the clichés.
What was your biggest challenge?
When I discovered motherhood, I realised that this was a turning point for me. Filmmaking is hard, gruelling work. It’s intense and I wondered whether that was compatible with the vulnerability that motherhood had plunged me into. I needed to dive straight in, without overthinking it. We shot quickly, we fought hard. Costa Rica is a tiny country; there aren’t many technicians yet there’s a real film boom going on, so my crew were exhausted from back-to-back shoots. I fought to prove to myself that I could make a film, while having my daughter. Ultimately, the challenge was very much linked to my private life.
This topic of motherhood is, after all, deeply embedded in the story itself. Can one pursue this profession whilst being a mother, and can motherhood itself be a subject for film…
I think I wrote this character of the mother with myself in mind to some extent, wondering how a woman might be perceived if she decided to step out of the role, to take a sort of break from motherhood, just for a moment. I don’t find it heroic or detestable; I find it normal and necessary, without idealising it. I don’t see it as selfishness, even if art itself, the very act of being an artist, is a form of selfishness.
(Translated from French)
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