At 40 years old, Jaione Camborda is up for the Golden Shell with her second film, O Corno, which was screened this Wednesday at the San Sebastián festival after its good reception a few days ago at its screening in the Platform section of the San Sebastián festival. Toronto. The Basque filmmaker has already presented her project as a resident in 2020 within the Ikusmira Berriak development program, organized by the San Sebastian competition, the International Center for Contemporary Culture-Tabakalera and Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (EQZE).
Just as she did in her debut feature, Arima (2019), the Galicia-based director once again composes a female universe in a rural environment. In this case in the Illa de Arousa in 1971, where María, a shellfish harvester who lives alone, helps women in childbirth with delicacy and attention. Clandestinely, she is also known for providing her services to other women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee and she has no choice but to cross the border along one of the smuggling routes between Galicia and Portugal.
"The story basically arises from the need to explore as a woman the capacity to conceive, to give birth. That animal and natural capacity of the human being. And it is based on many uncertainties that I have wanted to explore in a cinematographic way, without seeking rational answers, moving from a more instinctive, emotional and artistic way and to share these doubts with the viewer," he said at a press conference.
The film, the first film in Galician to compete for the contest's most important award, will hit theaters on October 11 and stars the dancer Janet Novás (quite a discovery) and has in its cast the also debutante Carla Rivas, Siobhan Fernándes and Diego Anido, among others. Camborda recalled that taking the film to Toronto was "very nice after four years of slow-burning gestation" and that being in Donosti is especially emotional because it was where he discovered cinema. "Being here for me is something very symbolic. I have been living in Galicia for almost 15 years and bringing a film from there unites both worlds and I hope that the festival can give us visibility that is always necessary in auteur cinema to reach the public. ", it states.
The director wanted to set the story in the seventies because "I wanted to work with characters very attached to the land, to portray a less medicalized birth that occurred a lot in rural areas and also because it is a dark time of prohibition, of control over bodies. of women and I saw it as important that all of this dialogue with current events. Regarding the casting, he opted for Janet because he was looking for a "very physical, corporal" character and he knew her work as a contemporary dancer and found in her "that inhabiting the body", in addition to the fact that she grew up in a rural area and demonstrated different dramatic arcs.
To prepare for her role, "I started working with the shellfish harvesters in La Illa," says Novás, "and I contributed my background as a dancer because María's emotion is in her body." And she also resorted a little to all the memory of the women with whom she has surrounded herself in Galicia. Of the young Carla Rivas, gifted with eyes that convey everything, Camborda says that she was part of a "wild casting" and the actress who immediately saw a clear choice for the role of a teenager who is preparing to compete as an athlete in Vigo and who He soon discovers new changes in his body. "She is very methodical and intelligent and since she has no experience as an actress she wanted it to appeal to her personal life and we worked with real and lived emotions."
O Corno begins with a long, exhausted sequence of a woman preparing to give birth at home. "For me it is the germinal part of the film. I think that childbirth has been shown in the cinema in a more psychological way, even with hysterical women and I saw it as important to portray those suspended tempos that exist between contractions, that being so connected to the body, in addition to portraying a tempo that appeals to the most careful observation".
To cause abortion, Mary uses ergot. "Coming from nature, this method invited me to explore abortion with certain parallels to other scenes such as childbirth or sex. In the film I was important to see how the woman was experiencing it, the entire physical part," manifests on a story of female sorority.
Regarding the fact that this edition there are three Spanish filmmakers competing for the Golden Shell, the director maintains that it is "a moment of celebration, although it comes late" and defends that they are filmed in three co-official languages. "I think we weren't being given the opportunity. Now good films about women are coming out because before they didn't let us make them," she concludes.
On the subject, producer María Zamora adds: "I have been lucky enough to produce many women directors and I believe that a batch of very powerful directors is coming. Thanks to previous references, there are many women who dare to direct, before it was an area cool, but as Jaione says it has arrived a little late and there is still a long way to go. It is true that it is fortunate that in San Sebastián it has happened this year that the three Spanish films are directed and also produced by women but I think we are all waiting for the day "Let this not be news."
