Film: "MARUJA"

Description

MARUJA

First film by Berta García-Lacht, candidate for the Goya Awards and the Forqué Awards

The story of MARUJA, based on real events, creatively mixes elements of social documentary and fiction to build a dramatic comedy that tells us about immigration, the loneliness of the elderly and the invisible work of caregivers and domestic workers.

Maruja lives with her husband and son in San Ildefonso, a working-class neighborhood in Cornellà. She is 80 years old, she feels alone at home and often goes outside to look for fresh air that makes her smile, always accompanied by her shopping cart.

The short film features Guadalupe Fiñana (winner of the first edition of Master Chef Abuelos and known for her Instagram profile grandmothereddragons) in the role of Maruja, with Carlos Cuevas and Gemma Sastre as professional actors, while the rest of the performances are provided by of neighbors from the San Ildefonso neighborhood.

The soundtrack is the work of composer and singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz, with a theme composed expressly for the short film that exalts the role of domestic workers and caregivers.

Maruja has been selected in more than 34 national and international festivals, including Cinequest (California), Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Oporto Femme International Film Festival. It has won about 12 awards so far: 4 for best short film, 4 from the public, 3 for best actress and 1 for best soundtrack, among which we highlight the Audience Award at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival, at the Festival La Big Screen (Barcelona), the Arrigorriaga Short Humor Contest, and the EDITA Social Audiovisual Festival; Award for Best Short Film in the Femmes Section of the FCM-PNR Madrid Film Festival and at the Bagur Film Festival; Award for Best Actress at the Aladerri International Film Festival (Chicago), at TaSHORTfest, and at the Oporto Femme Film Festival, and Award for Best Soundtrack at the Pávez Awards (Talavera de la Reina).

Its director, Berta García-Lacht, filmmaker and actress, graduated in Audiovisual Communication at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and at the Universität der Künste Berlin where she shot the feature film ÄTRÄ as her final year project. In 2016 she started the “Boobs Project”, a feminist photography project in which 60 women between 18 and 85 years old participated over two years. It was exhibited for the first time in 2019 and won the first Sigma Photo Spain award at the Enfocats festival in Barcelona that same year. At EICTV in Cuba she filmed “NO CHE” (2020), an essay in fiction that she shot on a weekend with no budget and which won the award for best short film at Cortos por la Igualdad 2022 in Valencia. It is currently being screened in educational centers in the Valencian Community.

"Maruja is a fiction with the air of a documentary. It is humor, comedy and laughter as a tool for survival. It is a tribute to all the women born in the war and post-war, forced to migrate and live on the outskirts of the cities where there was work , a true story. Maruja is my first short film, dedicated to all the Marujas. Because thanks to them and their tireless work, we can make films today." Berta García-Lacht

It is a production by Isabel Coixet (Miss Wasabi) and Estephania Bonnett (Playlab Films). Playlab is a production company from Barcelona specialized in researching new talents, with two areas of action: Creators Lab and Production Lab. Creators Lab organizes training workshops annually aimed at new filmmakers, who have the opportunity to film a short film alongside of great teachers. These workshops, held since 2014 in different places around the world (Bogotá, Barcelona, Cuba, Peru, Mexico), have benefited from the mastery of filmmakers of the stature of Abbas Kiarostami, Werner Herzog and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Playlab Films' resume includes, in addition to Maruja (2022), other short films, among which The Lost Memories of the Trees by Antonio La Camera stands out, which won the Best Short Film Award in the last edition of La Semanal Internacional de la Crítica Venice. He has also produced the feature films Baracoa (2019) by Pablo Briones, Memorias de un cuerpo que arde (2022) by Antonella Sudasassi and Nake oil song (2022), by Micah Van Hove (2023), the last two in the post-production phase.

Next screenings with the assistance of the director, the producer and the protagonist (in Seville).

Madrid at the Dama headquarters, Monday, November 6 at 6 p.m. (calle Calatrava, 31).

Seville, Monday, November 13, at 8 p.m. at the ABC Culture Classroom (Plaza Cuba, 10).

Barcelona in the Soho House room, Monday, November 20, at 8 p.m. (Plaza Duc de Medinaceli, 4).

Madrid at the Film Academy, Tuesday, November 21 at 5:25 p.m. (calle Zurbano, 3).

PLAYLAB FILMS PRODUCER ESTEPHANIA BONNETT Film producer and director. It has specialized in finding training spaces for new talents under the guidance of great cinema masters such as Abbas Kiarosta-mi, Werner Herzog and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, conducting practical workshops for emerging directors (Bogotá2014, Barcelona 2015, Cuba 2016 and 2017, Perú2018 and 2022) where more than 300 short films were produced and distributed in international festivals. After creating Black Factory Cinema, in 2019, she created her second film production company called PLAYLAB FILMS aimed at revealing new talents from the great masters of cinema. The first feature film project she launches is Baracoa by new director Pablo Briones in co-production with C-Side Productions (Switzerland) and The Moving Pictures Boys (USA), world premiered at the Berlinale and winner of the Biznaga de Plata awards at the Fest. Int. of Malaga and the Youth Prize at the Sheffield festival. Currently, he is in post-production of the feature film S S n n a a k ke e O O i i l l S S o o n n g g by M i c a h Va n H ove, in co-prod u c t i o n with Spirit Ape films (USA) and Inverted Taco (Canada), and the fiction feature film Memories of a Body That Arde, directed by the award-winning Antonella Sudasassi, winner of the ICEC co-production 2020, Ibermedia co-production 2021 and the Fauno.