Loving Martha

When director Daniela López was just about to start living with her partner, she received a worrying letter from her grandmother Martha. Martha had noticed that Daniela’s boyfriend is very domineering, and verbally violent. Having herself been subjected to psychological terror in a bad marriage for 39 years, Martha wants a very different life for her granddaughter. If only there had been someone there to warn her when she was young and naive.

It seems like the time is ripe for making the film Martha first proposed many years before, dealing with how her husband Amando made her life hell. What looks at first to be the story of Martha’s life, explored in intimate conversations between grandmother and granddaughter, gradually expands into a complex family drama in which the film project itself becomes a divisive issue.

In voice-over, López explains just how divided the family is, and that not everyone wants to be in her documentary. Increasingly, the subject of the film becomes the making of the film itself, and the way different generations deal with trauma and loyalty.

Nominated for IDFA Award for Best First Feature