26/08/2021 - The shoot for this film, which took part in the second edition of ECAM’s La Incubadora and scooped the Award for Best Project at Ventana Cine Mad, wrapped in early August

The shoot for Lullaby [+see also:
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interview: Alauda Ruiz de Azúa
film profile], the feature debut by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, starring Laia Costa and Susi Sánchez, has wrapped in Bakio, Spain, after five weeks filming on location in Madrid and Vizcaya. Now immersed in post-production, this was one of the titles that took part in the second edition of La Incubadora, run by ECAM (see the news), and won the Award for Best Project at Ventana Cine Mad. Laia Costa (an actress who shot to fame in the film Victoria [+see also:
film review
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interview: Sebastian Schipper
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film profile]) breathes life into Begoña, Amaia’s mother; Ramón Barea (Rosa’s Wedding [+see also:
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interview: Icíar Bollaín
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According to the synopsis provided by the production companies, Amaia has just become a mother and realises that she has no idea how to carry out this role. When her partner goes away for a few weeks, she decides to return to her parents’ house, in a town by the coast in the Basque Country, and thus share the responsibility for caring for her baby. What she doesn’t know is that, even though she may now be a mother, she’ll never stop being a daughter as well.

In the director’s own words,“The shoot has been an intense journey from start to finish, with so much selflessness on the part of the actors. I’m still coming out of that headspace, but I’m very keen to start editing and to finish moulding this story into shape.When I wrote the screenplay, I mulled over one question again and again: when do we stop being sons or daughters?It was beautiful to find out the answer as we made progress with the filming. Even though we may become mothers or fathers ourselves, we never stop being daughters or sons. We think we’re becoming adults, but all it takes is a sentence from our mum, and we feel like kids again.

“I decided to unpick the process through which, thanks to her own motherhood, a crisis-riddled first-time mum ends up understandingher mother in a way she never could have imagined,” continues the helmer. “And the protagonist’s mum is not just any old mother: she belongs to a generation of women who stayed at home and became lonely and invisible care providers; women who are not usually at the centre of anything and whom I wanted to turn into the crux of this story.”

Alauda Ruiz de Azúa has a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Deusto and is a Film Direction graduate from the ECAM. Her graduation work, Clases particulares (2005), took part in more than 100 festivals and picked up 30 awards to boot. She has worked as assistant director and script supervisor on various TV series and, in 2007, shot the short film Lo importante, which was selected by 30 festivals. In 2011, she wrote and directed They Say, which became the most-awarded Spanish short film of that year. Her latest short, Nena, was selected for 90 film gatherings, pocketing seven prizes.

Lullaby is a co-production between Encanta Films, Sayaka Producciones and Buenapinta Media. It has secured funding from the ICAA, the Basque regional government and the Community of Madrid, and boasts the involvement of RTVE, EITB and Orange. Latido Films will oversee its international sales, while Bteam Pictures will serve as its Spanish distributor.

(Translated from Spanish)