There are not a few famous actresses who have decided to try their luck behind the camera in recent years: Jodie Foster, Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, Kristen Stewart, Olivia Wilde, Maggie Gyllenhaal... giving rise to a silent revolution in the audiovisual scene. dominated by the male gaze that has now exploded with force under the name of Greta Gerwig, an interpreter trained in American indie cinema who has carved out a brilliant parallel career as a screenwriter and director.
He began his career in 2008 co-directing the romantic film Nights and Weekends with Joe Swanberg. She then went solo with the acclaimed Lady Bird and Little Women and now with Barbie she has touched heaven. With a worldwide gross of over one billion dollars, at 40 Gerwig has made history as the first female solo director to reach the dream figure for any major.
In Spain, more and more performers are launching themselves to film those stories that are not offered to them, occupying the spaces historically denied to women in cinema and television. They are years of observing the trade between takes and takes while they hide their personality in the skin of another person. According to data from the Ministry of Culture, Spanish films directed by women grew by 64% in 2022 thanks to the increase in aid. However, the situation is far from equal: of the total number of films released, only 25.5% were directed by women.
If we look back, it is worth remembering the Valencian Helena Cortesina (1904-1984) as a pioneer in these tasks. She began to walk as an actress at the age of 16 and at 21 she shot the first feature film directed and produced by a woman in our country. Flower of Spain or the story of a bullfighter (1923) combined two of the great booming genres of the time: the adaptation of a bullfighting novel and the zarzuela. Later, Ana Mariscal (1923-1995) and Margarita Alexandre (1923-2015) would follow.
Icíar Bollaín (Madrid, 1967) took his first steps in acting at the age of 16 in El sur , by Víctor Erice and, after appearing in titles such as While there is light or Tierra y libertad, he launched into directing in 1995 with the story of friendship female Hello, are you alone? , getting good reviews. Little by little, she has been displaying her talent as a screenwriter and producer and has opted to sit in the director's chair with award-winning productions such as Te doy mis ojos, El olivo, La boda de Rosa or Maixabel.
Leticia Dolera (Barcelona, 1981) has taken part in such popular series as Al salir de clase, Los Serrano or El barco and in the films REC] 3: Génesis, El otro lado de la cama, De tu ventana a la mía or La novia (these last two under the orders of Paula Ortiz). The Catalan directed four shorts before making her first feature, Requirements to be a normal person (2015), a comedy that won over critics for its naturalness and won three awards at the Malaga festival.
She is also behind the television series Bloguera en construcción and Vida perfecta – winner of the 2019 Cannes Series Festival for best series and best female performance. And in the distinguished French competition of this past edition, the actress Paz Vega ( 7 lives, Lucía and sex ) gathered the press to announce what will be her debut film as director, Rita , the “costumbrist and nostalgic” story of a girl in the Seville of the eighties. The film aims to portray the city that the 47-year-old interpreter lived in her childhood. Vega finished shooting this film in July, on which she has been working for six years and which includes herself, Roberto Álamo and the young Sofía Abeluz in the cast. Its premiere is scheduled for next year.
Cannes was also the showcase for the premiere of the second feature film by actress and director Elena Martín (Barcelona, 1992), who had already stood out successfully on both sides of the camera with Julia Ist after making herself known previously in Las amigas de Ágata as an interpreter. . La Creatura de ella, a portrait of the traumas of female sexuality shot in Catalan, won the prize for best European film at the Filmmakers' Fortnight. The film will land on the billboard on September 8 and "talks about a woman who tries to reconnect with pleasure and understand how her desire works," Martín commented in an interview with this newspaper.
Marta Nieto (Murcia, 1982) is another acclaimed actress who wants to demonstrate her talent behind the camera. Since she was little, she knew that her vocation was acting and she had her debut in her profession in 2005 in the series Central Hospital. We have seen her in more than twenty series and she has worked under the orders of Antonio Banderas (El camino de los ingleses), Dani de la Orden (Litus) or Rodrigo Sorogoyen in the short film Madre, nominated for an Oscar. The success of the short was extended two years later into a feature film with the same title that brought her a Goya nomination for best actress and recognition as best female performer in the Horizons section of the Venice Festival.
Determined to face new challenges, last year Nieto directed the short Son, an intimate story about a trans child, a subject that she wanted to delve into in a film that she shot this summer and which narrates the daily life of a trans minor from the point of view of from the mother's point of view, who is also struggling to rediscover herself. “It is a personal need, although assuming command is scary. I feel I have the right to try directing, not to do it well and not to be perfect, ”she said in 2021 shortly before getting down to work. In addition to directing and starring in La mitad de Ana, Nieto has co-written the dialogues with Beatriz Herzog. “The intuition that led me to want to tell this story about the awakening of an adult woman through the crisis of her daughter, was leading me to talk about my own conflict of identity as a woman, as a creator and as a mother”, explains she.
Aura Garrido (Madrid, 1989), one of the most sought-after faces on the small and big screen (El ministerio del tiempo, Malnazidos), has experienced a new artistic facet directing the short La Braulia, which she shot in 2021 and narrates the management of the mourning by two childhood friends. She has also wanted to go one step further in her career Verónica Echegui (Madrid, 1983), known for her role in Yo soy la Juani, by Bigas Luna. Her first project as a director has been the short fiction Tótem Loba, awarded with a Goya in the 2022 edition. The work is a denunciation of the "hypernormalization of gender violence", inspired by a personal experience that the author lived through the 17 years
And a Goya for the best documentary short film is the one obtained in 2021 by the writer, TV presenter, model and actress Mabel Lozano with Biography of the corpse of a woman, a piece that "gives a voice to thousands of women victims of trafficking".
On August 25, Itsaso Arana from Navarre opens Las chicas están bien in theaters, her first foray as a filmmaker after fifteen years as a film and television actress. At 37, the muse of Jonás Trueba (La Reconquista, La virgen de agosto, You have to come see her) has launched into writing and directing a “summer tale” about the coexistence of five actresses rehearsing a play in a country house away from the world and starring Bárbara Lennie, Irene Escolar, Itziar Manero, Helena Ezquerro and Arana herself. “The Girls Are Alright is a film about camaraderie and reconciliation between women. Doing it has been daring, disobedience, courage, ”she declares.
And the Oscar winner Penélope Cruz, who in 2016 already directed a documentary on leukemia, announced in July that she is preparing a new documentary that she will direct again. Almodóvar's muse described the future work as a "personal project": "It is one of the projects that we are developing and that I am directing, and it is the number one priority." The 49-year-old actress from Alcobendas already launched her own production company, Moonlyon, a year ago, whose objective is to produce both fiction and non-fiction content. Succeeding at Gerwig's level is another story, but there is no stopping these women.
