Málaga Film Festival: Las niñas and In-Person Cinema During the Pandemic
October 4, 2020
Sofía Alvarez Salas
October 4, 2020
Sofía Alvarez Salas
It’s undeniable that the film world has been deeply affected by the pandemic, especially by the lockdowns brought on by COVID-19. These drastic changes led to the cancellation of many festivals, including the 23rd edition of the Málaga Film Festival—one of the most important in the region—which had originally been scheduled for March. After the appropriate measures were taken, the festival was finally held in August, in person, becoming the first festival in Spain to be held physically after quarantine. Safety measures to prevent the spread of the virus included limiting theater capacity to 65% and reducing social activities during the festival. This edition of Málaga paved the way for other festivals with partial in-person formats, such as Venice, San Sebastián, Toronto, and Guanajuato, among others.
In this context, this special edition of the Málaga Film Festival was successfully carried out, awarding its top prize—the Biznaga de Oro—to Las niñas, the debut feature by Pilar Palomero, and what I believe is one of the best films of 2020 so far. The film had its theatrical release in Spain on September 4th, sharing the bill with the blockbuster Tenet, and yet it still managed to stand out.
Las niñas takes us to 1990s Spain—post-Franco and still deeply Catholic. There we meet Celia, a teenage girl at a religious school who struggles to find her own voice. Celia is held back by the nuns at school and by her family, until she meets the new girl in class—a rebellious spirit who opens the door to new experiences and helps expand Celia’s circle of friends.
Director Pilar Palomero presents a coming-of-age story rooted in what seem to be personal experiences: she too attended a Catholic school in Zaragoza, just like her protagonist. This results in a subtle treatment of the emotions that Celia (brilliantly played by Andrea Fandos) tries to repress in order to survive in her environment. It also allows us to witness her emotional evolution as she begins to understand what it means to grow up and ultimately finds her voice.
The cinematography, in a square 4:3 format, reinforces the sense of oppression that surrounds her, her friends, her mother, and really, everyone in her world. The cast is almost entirely composed of women and girls, all of them fighting some form of repression and each showing some form of rebellion against it. We never see the oppressor, but we see those who work for him: gossip and rumors spread quickly, so quickly that the girls can’t defend themselves. They’re forced to take responsibility for the actions or reputations of their parents and carry those burdens as their own.
The film aims to reflect on the contradictions of this stage of life—the awakening to a non-idealized reality (family problems, bullying, etc.)—alongside the inability to express what each girl is feeling or needs. There are several scenes in which Celia tries to open up to her mother (played by Natalia de Molina), but they are never able to truly communicate. The mother is consumed by her own struggles. It’s only much later in the story that a real opportunity for connection arises, and it’s only when both decide to be vulnerable and face the consequences that we see them finally support one another.
It’s also worth highlighting the role of the Church in shaping the characters’ behavior throughout the story. The families that send their daughters to the church school are “non-traditional”—grandparents raising grandchildren, single mothers, mothers enjoying their singleness—not what is typically expected or accepted in such institutions. And yet these women, despite being rejected by that system, still try to be a part of it and impose it on their daughters. This double standard presented to the girls results in the prejudices they begin to internalize—and in the rebellion that inevitably emerges.
Palomero seeks to portray the contradictions of growing up—the inner battles and external ones that lead to decisions shaping a person’s character. Las niñas feels like a love letter to adolescence; you leave the theater with a tender feeling and inevitably think about your own coming-of-age.
