This year, 22 Catalan productions have been selected for the 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival, demonstrating the strong expansion of the region's film industry.
Among them there is Mammaldirected by Liliana Torres. The Barcelona-born director wanted to address the theme of “non-motherhood” — a woman’s decision not to have children — in response to a stigma she has personally experienced.
Torres’s project, screening in San Sebastian this week, follows Lola (played by Maria Rodríguez Soto) and Bruno (Enric Auquer), two forty-somethings in a happy relationship. As Lola watches her friends and family obsess over their children or whether she has them, she is shocked to discover that she is pregnant and unhappy about it. Everyone around her is so attached to the experience of motherhood that Lola struggles with the idea that something is wrong with her.
The film offers a poignant commentary on the social pressure on women to surrender to what Torres says is falsely described as “instinct.” The film is also a celebration of Catalan as a language and Catalonia as a region: the Catalan government, after all, is investing more money in film and television every year, with an estimated budget of around €50 million ($54.5 million) in 2024.
Torres spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on the Spanish coast to address the theme of “non-motherhood” and why Catalan cinema is currently at its best, especially when it comes to female directors.
Congratulations on such an inspiring film. How did you do it? Mammal was born and why did you want to make a film about this topic?
For me, it was a recurring topic. Since I was a little girl, I already knew that I didn't want to have children. So, when I was in my 20s, most people would say to me, “Oh, no, it's not what you think, it's because you're so young.” And then, when I was 40, people would say to me, “You're going to regret this.” So it's been a topic that has been with me my whole life, and Mammal It's a way for me to create some justice. Because all my references to women who didn't want to be mothers were secondary characters, very stereotypical, very cliché, the typical woman who lives alone and doesn't like children or the woman who has a very high-level job, so she doesn't have time, but she's doing such a fantastic job that we forgive them. And that wasn't real to me. It's like I have to have a reason for not wanting to be a mother. Why do I have to have a reason? I don't. That's my reason. And if I want to do something very superficial, banal, with my life, I'm allowed to! That was the main reason why I made this film, because I think we were missing that reflection for us, to not stigmatize these women.
And this stigma, in your opinion, is it something that concerns Spain exclusively?
No. For me it’s global. It transcends any country. It has to do with the traditional view of women, the patriarchy that puts motherhood at the center of our lives, as if that’s what makes our lives worth living. The other options seem futile to the patriarchy. You know, what is a childless woman supposed to do with her life? It seems like the question is: what is she planning to do? It’s suspicious in some ways, and it also takes us away from domestic life for a long time. We don’t have to raise children, which normally takes women away from their professions.
I had never seen this word, “non-motherhood”, used to describe the plot of the film before.
We have so many terms for not having children. Child-free sounds to me like I'm a slave to a child and childless sounds like I'm missing something. There's even a technical, biological term in Catalonia for it, but we don't use it much in conversation. It means “never lay an egg”. But to me, not motherhood [is suitable].
There are some elements in Mammal I want to ask about. Lola sees her friends desperately wanting children, or already having them, and she sees something wrong with her mind and body. So this pressure comes from there too.
I still think it has to do with patriarchy, and especially how we've been taught for a long time that motherhood is an instinct. So you think, if motherhood is an instinct, what's wrong with me? Biologically, there must be something wrong with me. This is a question that's been on my mind for a long time before I started studying. And I've read a lot of books, and [French philosopher and feminist] Simone de Beauvoir helped me a lot with this idea of motherhood. I read a lot of books that said that motherhood was not an instinct, it was just a social construction.
Even if you are a mother, the decision is yours.
And I would like to ask you about the support that Lola receives from her partner, Bruno. She recognizes that becoming parents can be much easier for men. Or at least an easier decision. So writing to Bruno was both supportive and important?
I wanted to have a pair that [was] really in love. They've been in a relationship for a long time, they've discussed not having children. And for me, the idea of having a supportive partner was very important. Because on the one hand, I wanted to say that you can get along very well with your partner and have a great relationship, but that doesn't make you want children. And even if that desire were to arise, as in Mammalthere is a reason. And even Bruno is very progressive and never imposes his desire, he always asks and even offers: “I'm changing jobs” and all that. However, there is something physical about motherhood that you can't escape. So even though he offers all this, Lola knows that she will have to leave a lot of people in her life that she really likes, and that is a fact that you can't escape.
Maria and Enric gave fantastic performances. Great chemistry and I really believed in them as a couple. You must have been very happy with how it ended.
They are very good friends in real life, so they helped us a lot. And they are very good actors. I was very grateful for that. They are both very professional and had a lot of fun during the rehearsals, reading the script and discussing the topic. Also, they are very different. For example, Maria really got into Lola with her humor and irony and also with her thoughtfulness but also with her assertiveness. As for Enric, he was very used to playing men from a male perspective. A lot of times he would start talking to Lola from a testosterone point of view, as if he was arguing. And she would say, “No, no, no, you're not arguing, you're just talking to her.” And he was like, “Okay. I understand. We can talk about it.” He was learning something from Bruno's character.
I would like to ask about filming in Catalan, the representation of Catalonia and the place of Catalan cinema in the sector?
Catalan productions are doing very well, especially in terms of authorship. We have many women who write. So you have [Barcelona native filmmaker] Carla Simón, winner of last year's Berlin Film Festival.
We have a lot of names and writers who are going abroad, outside of Spain, and winning awards and positions in Catalan, which is very important to us, because maintaining the language, maintaining the culture, sometimes it becomes complicated. Because you have to dub the films so that they are distributed in many Spanish cinemas. It is something that really sucks. Because it should be easier. We are in Spain, we should have subtitles.
Why do they insist on dubbing?
I think it's because exhibitors are always afraid to put a film with subtitles in Spain, because people automatically discard a film because they're lazy, they don't want to read. And it also has to do with the dominant culture. They treat Catalans and Basques as separate cultures within Spain.
Would you say that Catalan cinema is at its best right now, in terms of production? There are 22 Catalan productions in San Sebastian this year.
In terms of authorship, for sure. The amount of productions, yes, a good amount.
How important is it for you, as a Catalan, that Catalonia is represented on the big screen?
Of course, it's important because it has to do with our culture, but it's also important because there's a big movement in Catalonia with female directors. In that sense, for us, it's very important because we're slowly reaching equality and I'm very happy that all these friends around me are getting awards and debuting in the main sections of festivals. I think it's a very important moment in Catalonia. I'm so grateful. We're well supported by the government.
Finally, what would you like to make a movie about in the future? Is there anything on the horizon?
I’m working on a script now. It has to do with two topics that are very close to me. One is menopause, which I had very early in my life and is something that is not talked about in public debates. It changes your life even more than puberty: it is more radical mentally, physically. But I am connecting this to climate change in a specific region of Catalonia, where we have overexploitation of resources: water, air pollution, deforestation, mainly due to intensive pig farming. So I am connecting all this in a character, a landscape.