EXCLUSIVE: Screen can unveil the first trailer for Valentina Maurel’s Forever Your Maternal Animal, which is set to world premiere in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.

It’s the story of a young woman, Elsa, who after years studying in Europe returns to Costa Rica to reunite with her family. She finds her younger sister living alone in the family home and their parents absorbed in their own lives, the mother immersed in publishing the erotic poems of her youth.

Costa Rican writer/director Valentina Maurel had her debut feature, I Have Electric Dreams, win best director in Locarno’s international competition in 2022. Daniela Marín Navarro and Reinaldo Amién also won best actress and best actor respectively in Locarno for the film. The two are also starring in Maurel’s second feature now in Cannes alongside Marina de Tavira and Mariangel Villegas.

Maurel had previously attended Cannes with two short films: Paul Is Here, which won the first prize at the Cinéfondation selection in 2017 and Lucía en el Limbo, which premiered in Critics’ Week in 2019.

Forever Your Maternal Animal is a Belgium’s Wrong Men and France’s Geko Films co-production with Mexico’s Pimienta. Heretic is handling international sales.

 

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