– After winning over Locarno, the director of Costa Rican origin living in Belgium is making her return to the French festival
Mariangel Montero and Daniela Marín Navarro in Forever Your Maternal Animal
Valentina Maurel, the director of Costa Rican origin living in Belgium, will present her second feature film, Forever Your Maternal Animal, in a world premiere within the Un Certain Regard sidebar in Cannes. Her first film, I Have Electric Dreams, made waves in Locarno back in 2022, when it won Best Director, as well as Best Actress for Daniela Marín Navarro and Best Actor for Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez in the international competition. Her selection in Cannes isn’t a first for the filmmaker either, since she previously presented her short works Paul est là (awarded the Cinéfondation Prize in 2017) and Lucia en el limbo (selected for Critics’ Week in 2019) in the festival. Artistic director Thierry Frémaux expressed his delight at the Costa Rican’s participation in the Official Selection during Cannes’ recent press conference.
Forever Your Maternal Animal follows directly in the footsteps of the director’s previous film, as we see her setting up her camera in San José once again and notably reuniting with her favourite actress, Daniela Marín Navarro, who was magnificent in I Have Electric Dreams. “I was really keen to continue exploring this terrain”, the director explained, “and to work with the same actors. I adore them, and I feel like we’re growing together. There’s not really a film industry in Costa Rica; we learned together, as a team, they through acting and me through making the film and directing the actors.”
After homing in on a period as fragile and intense as adolescence, she’s now shifting her gaze to two young women grappling with their transition to adulthood. Returning to Costa Rica after studying in Europe, Elsa reunites with her little sister, Amalia, who’s alone in the family home. Increasingly elusive, the latter seems entrenched in esoteric beliefs. Elsa tries to alert their parents, but neither their father, who’s too focused on his new conquests, or their mother, who’s absorbed in new editions of the erotic poems penned in her youth, seems to grasp the gravity of the situation. Elsa’s return sees the three women questioning their unbreakable bond.
“It’s almost intimidating being selected for the Un Certain Regard line-up”, Valentina Maurel confides, “but it gives me a lot of hope. I want to remain consistent in my filmmaking approach. And being in a section which favours powerful films, and which good filmmakers have previously taken part in, is fantastic. It also shows that you can film really specific things, in a very specific place in the world, and take a very intimate approach, and it can still be seen as a powerful work. I hope the film will find its audience there.”
As per the director’s previous film, Forever Your Maternal Animal was produced by Benoît Roland on behalf of Wrong Men (Belgium) and by Grégoire Debailly for Geko Films (France), in co-production with Nicolas Celis for Pimienta (Mexico). Maurel’s selection in Cannes highlights Wrong Men’s incredibly dynamism when it comes to discovering young directors. Since 2015, the Belgian firm has seen no fewer than 17 of its productions and co-productions selected in Cannes, including Our Men, Zero Fucks Given, The Other Laurens, Omen, and Kika. World sales are entrusted to Heretic, with the film set for distribution in the Benelux Union by Cinéart and in France by JHR Films.
(Translated from French)
