Valentina Maurel's 'Siempre soy tu animal materno' Premieres at Cannes Un Certain Regard

Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel's second feature film, 'Siempre soy tu animal materno' (Forever Your Maternal Animal), premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 79th Cannes Film Festival. The film expands on themes from her debut 'Tengo sueños eléctricos' (2022), which won best actress, best actor, and best director at the Locarno Film Festival, plus the FIPRESCI prize at Mar del Plata. Actors Daniela Marín Navarro and Reinaldo Amien reprise their roles as daughter and father. The story follows Elsa (Marín Navarro), who returns to Costa Rica from Brussels, where she studies anthropology, confronting a dysfunctional family. Her younger sister Amalia (Mariangel Villegas) lives isolated in a decaying family home, surrounded by squatters and dogs, having dropped out of university and claiming to see ghosts. The mother (Marina de Tavira, Oscar-nominated for 'Roma') tries to revive her literary career and undergoes blepharoplasty. The father awkwardly introduces a new partner who was Elsa's classmate. Maurel's film explores emotional decay, the inability to sustain relationships, and the ruins of familial affection. It is only the second Costa Rican film selected for Un Certain Regard, following Ariel Escalante Meza's 'Domingo y la niebla' (2022). Maurel previously won the Cinéfondation prize in 2017 for 'Paul est là' and screened short 'Lucía en el limbo' at Cannes in 2019.