23/09/2024 - Juana Macías’ new film brings originality, authenticity and emotiveness to the delicate and thorny topic of underage prostitution

The 72nd San Sebastián International Film Festival has hosted the world premiere – at a gala organised by RTVE – of The Girls at the Station [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the new outing by Juana Macías (nominated for the Goya Award for Best New Director in 2010 for Planes para mañana [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile] and currently in the limelight thanks to the series Las abogadas, which that same channel will air imminently). The premiere took place on Monday 23 September, the International Day Against Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Women and Children. Fittingly, the prostitution of underage persons is the central topic of this film, which draws inspiration from both high-profile cases of minors in foster care who fell victim to networks of pimps, and the gang rape of a girl that took place in Majorca in 2019.

The movie introduces us to Jara, Álex and Miranda, a group of girls who have grown up in an educational institution without knowing unconditional love, as they come from problem families or were abandoned at birth. However, Jara’s birthday is fast approaching, and they want to celebrate in style by going to a concert to see their favourite trap queen. The problem is, they have no money, and nor do they have many means of getting any, although there’s a girl wandering around the neighbourhood who’s older than they are, who suggests they engage in sexual encounters with adults in the station toilets. Gradually, they get tangled up in a web that even includes luxury private parties...

The feature, co-written by Macías and Isa Sánchez (Alegría [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), is propped up by the youthfulness and expressiveness of a cast toplined by Julieta Tobío, Salua Hadra and María Steelman in their first performances in front of a camera after being selected through a casting process. It’s in these young and energetic actresses, who are very believable despite their lack of acting experience, and in the omnipresent soundtrack hinging on urban music – in which we hear tracks by Gata Cattana, La Blackie, La Zowi and Dalila, among others, talking about survival, violence and alienation – where we find the sheer emotional power of a respectful, spritely and entertaining film that brings to mind other youth-centric chronicles revolving around the lower class, such as Eloy de la Iglesia’s brand of 1970s juvenile-delinquent films (in which groups of young kids sold their bodies in order to be able to afford drugs) or Barrio by Fernando León de Aranoa (1998), albeit rooted in the grotty, harsh surroundings of the present day.

In this way, The Girls at the Station emerges not just as a respectable and effective condemnation film, but also as a love letter to friendship and sisterhood, as these young women end up forming something akin to an honest family when they find, in their empathetic friends, that support, understanding and affection they had been yearning for all along.

The Girls at the Station is a production by FeelGood Media, Kowalski Films, La Perifèrica Produccions and Las chicas de la estación AIE, which boasts the involvement of RTVE, IB3 and Movistar Plus+. International sales are handled by Film Factory.

(Translated from Spanish)