Lita (16) has feared lizards since childhood. Every summer, she returns to Lagartera, where her family’s traditions run deep. During Corpus Christi celebration, as her grandmother dresses her, Lita uncovers the roots of her fear.
Year of production 2025 Length 22' CountrySpain Shooting Format Digital/16mm Aspect Ratio 3:2 Dialogue Spanish
DirectorIrene Baqué Production Company 15L Films Co-produced byCabiria, CMM (Castilla la Mancha Media) Producers Carlota Coloma, Adrià Lahuerta, Manuel Pereira Executive ProducerCarlota Coloma Production Director Manuel Pereira Writer Irene Baqué Director of Photography Artur-Pol Camprubí Editor Estel Román Production DesignerOriol Serra Costume DesignWanda Morales Casting DirectorBerta Galvany Sound RecordistIsabela Bello Sound DesignLaura Tomás Color CorrectionMartí Somoza Cast Ángela Moreno Ropero, Ascensión Corrochano Arroyo, Evelia Serrano Corrochano, Almudena Amor
Director's Statement Mal de madre is based on a doctoral thesis about the beliefs and legends that have circulated in recent generations around menstruation: not being able to make mayonnaise because it separates, not being able to wash your hair or the fear of certain animals. The fear of lizards during menstruation was a myth that was passed down from generation to generation in rural Spain. An unlikely event that developed a fear in more women than we think. In her book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir noted that the discovery of the ovum in 1900 began to leave behind hundreds of years of ignorance about menstruation and the female body. This ignorance (also the result of patriarchy) has led to periods being seen as something impure and has created myths and legends that have been passed down from mothers to daughters among women all over the world. Lita's current phobia of lizards goes beyond the rational; it is innate in her body, part of her identity. A fear that she has inherited, just as she has also inherited a dress, traditions and an identity from the women in her family. Her late great-grandmother, played by Almudena Amor, turns out to be the origin of the dress she wears on Corpus Christi, as well as the origin of the fear. Lita lives in a world of extremes that contrast between analogue and digital, between the individual and the collective, between the mystical and the rational. She is part of a generation whose inevitable digital distractions prevent them from appreciating traditions that are dying, a world that is disappearing before their eyes. Visually, I play at representing such juxtapositions with subtleties more related to the music and the community of village women, as opposed to an art direction and styling that plays with the timelessness of village life.
