‘Mamífera’ Director Liliana Torres on the Stigma of “Non-Maternity” and Why Catalan Film Is Better Than Ever
This year, 22 Catalan productions have been selected for the 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival, highlighting just how much the region’s film industry is booming.
Among them is Mamífera, directed by Liliana Torres. The Barcelona-born filmmaker wanted to tackle the subject of “non-maternity” — a woman’s decision not to have children — in response to a stigma she has felt personally.
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Torres’ project, screening in San Sebastian this week, follows Lola (played by Maria Rodríguez Soto) and Bruno (Enric Auquer), two 40-something-year-olds in a happy relationship. As Lola watches her friends and family obsess over either their own children or having children, she is shocked to find herself pregnant and unhappy about it. Everyone around her is so connected to the experience of motherhood, it causes Lola to grapple with the idea that something is wrong with her.
The film offers a poignant commentary on the societal pressure placed on women to surrender to what Torres says is falsely described as “instinct.” The movie is also a celebration of Catalan as a language and Catalonia as a region — the Catalan government is, after all, year-on-year investing more money in film and television, with an estimated budget of around 50 million euros ($54.5 million) in 2024.
Torres spoke to The Hollywood Reporter on the Spanish coast about addressing “non-maternity” and why Catalan film is currently at its best — especially for female filmmakers.
Congratulations on such a thought-provoking film. How did Mamífera come to be, and why did you want to make a movie on this subject?
For me, it was an ongoing subject. Since I was a child, I already knew I didn’t want to have children. So when I was my 20s, most people were telling me, “Oh, no, that’s not what you think, it’s because you’re so young.” And then when I was in my 40s, people were telling me: “You will regret it.” So it’s a subject that has accompanied me for my whole life, and Mamífera is, for me, a way to create a little bit of justice. Because all my references of women who didn’t want to be a mother used to be 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-status work, so she has no time — but she’s doing such a great job that we forgive them. And that wasn’t real to me. It’s like, I have to have a reason to not want 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, trivial, with my life, I’m allowed to! That was the main reason for me making this movie, because I think we were lacking that reflection for us, to unstigmatize these women.
And this stigma, is it something that you think is specific to Spain?
No. For me, it’s global. It transcends every country. It has to do with the traditional point of view, over women — the patriarchy, which puts motherhood in the center of our lives, as if that’s what makes our lives worth it. The other options seem futile for the patriarchy. You know, what is a woman without children meant to do with her life? It seems to be the question: What is she planning to do? It’s suspicious somehow, and it also pulls us outside from domesticity for a long time. We don’t have to be raising children, which normally takes women away from their professions.
This word, “non-maternity,” that is used to describe the film’s plot, I’ve not seen it before.
We have so many terms regarding not having children. “Child-free” sounds to me like if I was a slave of a child and “childless” sounds like I’m lacking something. There is also a technical, biological term in Catalonia for that, but we don’t use it very much in the conversation. It means “never put an egg.” But for me, non-maternity [is suitable].
There are a few elements in Mamífera I want to ask about. Lola sees her friends who so desperately want kids — or already have them — and sees something wrong with her own mind and body. So this pressure comes from there, too.
I still think it has to do with the patriarchy, and specifically in the way that they have taught us for a long time that motherhood is an instinct. So you think, if motherhood is an instinct, what is wrong with me? Biologically, there has to be something wrong with me. That was a question that came up for me for a long time before I started studying. And I went through many 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 motherhood wasn’t an instinct, it was just a social construction.
Even if you’re a mother, it’s your decision.
And I want to ask about the support Lola gets from her partner, Bruno. She acknowledges that becoming a parent can be a lot easier for men. Or at least an easier decision. So was it important to write Bruno as supportive?
I wanted to have a couple that [was] really in love. They have been in a relationship for a long time, they have discussed not having children. And for me, the idea to have a supportive partner was very important. Because on one hand, I wanted to say that you can get on very well with your partner and have a beautiful relationship, but that doesn’t make you desire children. And even if that desires arose, like in Mamífera, there is a reason. And even Bruno is very progressive and is never imposing his desire, always asking and also offering: “I change my work” and everything. Still, there is something physical to motherhood that you cannot escape. So even if he offers all of that, Lola knows that she will have to quit a lot of people in her life that she really likes, and that’s a fact that you cannot escape.
Maria and Enric put in fantastic performances. Great chemistry, and I so believed them as a couple. You must have been very pleased with how it turned out.
They are very good friends in real life, so that helped us a lot. And they are very good actors. I was so grateful. Both are really professional and they really had a lot of fun while rehearsing and reading the script and talking about the topic. Also, they are very different. For example, Maria got into Lola very fast with the humor and irony and also being caring but very assertive. For Enric, he was very used to playing men from a male perspective. There were many times he would start talking with Lola from a point of testosterone, like arguing. And she would say, “No, no, no, you’re not discussing, you’re just talking at her.” And he was like, “OK. I get it. We can talk about this.” He was learning something from Bruno’s character.
I want to ask about filming in Catalan, representing Catalonia and where Catalonian film’s place is in the industry?
Catalan productions are going really well, most of all, in terms of authorship. We have a lot of women who are writing. So you have [Barcelona native filmmaker] Carla Simón, who won at the Berlin Film Festival last year.
We have a lot of names and writers that are going international, out of Spain, and winning prizes and position in Catalan, which for us is very important, because keeping the language, keeping the culture, it gets tricky sometimes. Because you have to dub the movies so they will release in many Spanish cinemas. That 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 is because exhibitors are always afraid to put a movie with subtitles in Spain, because people will automatically discard a movie because they’re lazy, they don’t want to read. And it also has to do with the dominant culture. They treat Catalans and the Basque Country country like separate cultures inside Spain.
Would you say that Catalonian film is at its best at the moment, in terms of production? There are 22 Catalan productions at San Sebastian this year.
In terms of authorship, for sure. The amount of productions, yeah, a good amount.
How important is it that Catalonia is represented on the big screen for you as someone from Catalonia?
Of course it’s important because it has to do with our culture, but it’s also important because there is a big movement in Catalan with women directors. In this sense, for us, it’s very important because we are slowly reaching equality and I’m very happy that all these friends around me are getting prizes and debuting in the principal sections of festivals. I think it’s a very huge moment in Catalonia. I’m so grateful. We are well-supported by the government.
Finally, what would you like to make a film about next? 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 got very early on in my life and is something that is not talked about in public discussion. It changes your life even more than puberty — it’s more radical mentally, physically. But I’m linking that with climate change in a specific region of Catalonia, in which we have overexploitation of the resources: water, air pollution, deforestation, due to the factory farms of pork, mainly. So I’m linking this together in one character, one landscape.
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