Filming
‘La Maternal’ will be his second film after the success of ‘Las chicas’, winner of the Goya for best film in the last edition
Pilar Palomero (Zaragoza, 1980) shoots in the Monegros ‘La Maternal’, her second film, after the success of ‘Las Chicas’, winner of the Goya for best film in the last edition of the awards given by the Film Academy. Precisely in the Residences program of the institution, Palomero worked the script for the film, during the second promotion.
The plot of the film follows Carla, a young woman at risk of exclusion, who arrives six months pregnant at the reception center called La Maternal, where she has to learn to live with her teenage companions and prepare as a future mother. There she will end up giving birth and living with another young mother. A vital challenge that involves knowing himself better and understanding the world around him, including the unstable and destructive relationship with his own mother, “a story about strength, courage, overcoming, but also about isolation, fear and abandonment “, as acknowledged by Pilar Palomero, who once again immerses herself in a feminine universe for the film, now with” a friendly and luminous drama, with even touches of humor. ”
«’La Maternal’ stars a group of young non-professional actresses and actors between the ages of 12 and 15 who emerged from the castings called by the production company, and by Ángela Cervantes (‘Chavalas’ and the series ‘Perfect Life’) as the mother of the protagonist. The Aragonese director talks about how the project came about. This is how the Aragonese filmmaker describes it: «For the writing of the script for ‘La Maternal’ I spoke with many educators from shelters for adolescent mothers at risk of social exclusion. One of them told me: ‘You are not born knowing how to be a mother. You learn to be a mother. ‘ I have always been very interested in the subject of motherhood. When I began to research on adolescent motherhood and to meet women who had become mothers at 13, 14, 15 or 16 years old, I realized that they are stories that we hardly know anything about, and that even give us a certain modesty to listen. I discovered that there was something to tell, something in which to intervene, investigate, learn more, and give the young women a voice because I found a group of women with great strength, very brave, people who for me are a case to follow ». Pilar Palomero has also met with women who, already of legal age, were mothers in their adolescence. «Their stories move and amaze me. Through them I have come to know a reality about which little is known and that deserves to be portrayed. They are extreme experiences, in the good and in the bad, that suppose a trip to the very essence of human nature ».
The film wants to be a visual treatise on “motherhood, both the protagonist with the baby she cares for and in relation to her mother.” In addition, the director wants to address here «the universe of social workers, people who get involved in small battles that could bring some kind of solution, for a moment, a month or a lifetime, people who have lived so many extreme experiences that each one already they would have a film to tell and that they do not feel that their lives have been reflected in the cinema ».
“The film takes place in the town and the city,” continues Pilar Palomero. “Nor have I wanted to address the duality of urban space and rural space, nor have I wanted to draw parallel lives between the protagonist, Carla, and her mother, played by Angela Cervantes, who was also a young mother,” he says. For her part, the actress speaks of her role as someone “very sensitive and fragile. I’m so into character that I’ve wanted to stay with the team even on the days when I don’t shoot. Pilar Palomero takes great care of the details, she has a realistic and poetic look at the same time, and she is not very rigid ».
Filming will continue in and around Barcelona. ‘La Maternal’ is a production by Inicia Films and Bteam Prods, like Palomero’s previous film. It has the participation of Televisión Española, Televisión de Catalunya, Televisión de Aragón, Movistar Plus and with the support of ICAA and ICEC. The Media Program also participates. The theatrical release will be provided by Bteam Pictures in 2022.
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