AIDS was the plague of the 80s and 90s. It was a disease that wreaked havoc and was talked about a lot. Now there are still those who suffer from it, but "nothing is said anymore about the people who suffer from it physically and psychologically." "Infected women are not usually mentioned either, but there are and their life changed emotionally and sexually." For this reason, Elvira Lindo wrote Someone to take care of me, a story about a mature woman who is a victim of AIDS.
Now, Lindo and Daniela Féjerman have taken that story to the movies because "it had a dramatic conflict to tell." Féjerman and Lindo are directing Someone Who Takes Care of Me, which is also a film about motherhood and which today opened the Malaga Festival. The film has a very choral cast and "very well chosen, since we are convinced that there are no other actors to play these roles," the directors point out in an interview with La Vanguardia.
Emma Suárez gives life to Cecilia, a mature actress who finds herself at the center of a dynasty of performers. Her mother, Magüi Mira, was one of the queens of the stage and her daughter, Aura Garrido (Nora), has just won a Goya. Nora loves her crazy mother, but she doesn't understand the relationship that she has had for many years with a bisexual man played by Pedro Mari Sánchez. On the other hand, the relationship between Cecilia and Magüi is very tense. In the midst of all this, young Nora discovers her mother's best kept secret and begins a relationship with a young actor, Víctor Clavijo.
"Each actor came to us in a different way. The men immediately said yes. They fit the roles, they were written for them. We fell in love with Aura right away. In the film she is in a state of grace, you eat her. And Magüi embodies to an actress who plays an actress. For her part, Emma fits perfectly into a time that is the one she knew, that of the youth of the 80s when she was so successful," explain the directors of Someone Who Takes Care of Me.
The fact of having chosen such a well-known cast has allowed the filmmakers to take advantage of very valuable material for the film, such as Suárez's youthful photos or an old interpretation by Pedro Mari Sánchez of Chekhov's La gaviota recorded in 1981. In addition, Lindo and Féjerman have "taken advantage" of Clavijo's qualities as a pianist and photographer. "He is gifted and for us all that material, a luxury."
But while Someone Who Takes Care of Me is anchored in the '80s, it takes place in the present day. And despite the fact that it is narrated with a touch of comedy, it also addresses dramatic conflicts such as the difficult relationship between Magüi and her daughter Cecilia. "There is something about Magüi's character that is real, because there are women who did not want to be mothers, but at that time they did not consider not having children. Those mothers hoped that their daughters would not give them problems, but if a rebellious girl came out, they would not they knew how to approach it", explains Lindo, who signs the script with Féjerman.
With Someone Who Takes Care of Me, the Malaga Festival has kicked off an intense week of cinema in which 20,000 species of bees will be present, by Estibaliz Urresola, whose protagonist, nine-year-old Sofía Otero, won the award for best leading role at the last Berlinale. They will also compete in the official section A not so simple life, the latest work by Félix Viscarret and La desconocida, by Pablo Maqueta. The Catalan presence is guaranteed with the film by Sílvia Munt, Las buenas compañías, which tells the story of the first feminists in the 70s in Rentería, Unicors by Àlex Lora and Els encantats, by Elena Trapé.
