– Drawing on her own life experience, debut filmmaker Marta Matute delivers a realistic portrayal of the devastating impact a mother’s serious illness has on the family members caring for her
Júlia Mascort and Sonia Almarcha in I Won’t Die for Love
The big winner at the latest Málaga Film Festival, I Won’t Die for Love, Marta Matute’s debut feature, arrives in Spanish cinemas this Friday, 8 May, distributed by Elastica. The film not only won the Golden Biznaga for Best Spanish Film in the Official Selection, but also secured acting awards for newcomer Júlia Mascort (Best Actress) and veteran Tomás del Esnal (Best Supporting Actor), as well as the Feroz Puerta Oscura Award.
With a screenplay written by the director herself – developed during the Film Academy Residency, among other workshops – and drawing on a decade of her own life, the film recounts, with concision and naturalism, how a family living on the outskirts of Madrid begins to notice the first signs of a degenerative brain disease in the mother (played by Sonia Almarcha, who is deeply moving in some scenes).
As the years pass, her two daughters – Inés, the eldest, who lives in Barcelona (played by Laura Weissmahr, whose emotions simmer just beneath the surface), and the younger Claudia (Mascort) – along with their father (played by Tomás del Esnal) must adapt their daily lives to care for her as the illness advances relentlessly.
This is not exactly a family straight out of a furniture catalogue, but an ordinary household, not prone to display their emotions or feelings, with limited resources to be able to hire medical specialists, who must take on the ongoing care of a loved one whom they are gradually losing as the months go by. It is a situation many viewers will recognise, and one that can devastate the household.
That is precisely what Matute seeks to highlight: the lack of effective governmental support for the care of the chronically ill, a burden that falls on their loved ones, with exhausting consequences. She conveys this through a mature, restrained, measured and meticulous direction, where silences, ellipses and glances carry more weight than dialogue.
As the years unfold and driven by circumstances beyond their control, the family members will come together, set aside their differences and reveal their capacity for empathy, even as the emotional and physical toll grows heaver, particularly for Claudia, who is still discovering the world and herself.
But this is not a film about illness; it is a film about care. It raises its voice to call for a care law that supports chronically ill patients and those who shoulder the daily responsibility of caring for them 24 hours a day. Sometimes, as in Claudia’s case, this can only be achieved by stepping back from a reality that becomes too heavy to bear.
I Won’t Die For Love is produced by Spanish companies Solita and Elasticity and Belgian company Saga Film.
(Translated from Spanish)
