Cannes 2023: Exclusive CREATURA Poster Premiere, Spanish Drama Confronts Female Sexual Repression
Spain’s emerging filmmaker Elena Martín Gimeno will be unveiling her latest work, Creatura, at the Cannes Film Festival in the Quinzaine des cinéastes competition. The intimate drama follows Mila as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and unravels the complexities of her relationship with her body.
Elena Martín Gimeno, a versatile talent in cinema and theatre, made her directorial debut with the award-winning Júlia Ist. She has directed episodes of Perfect Life and acted in films like the EFA-nominated short Suc de Síndria.
As a performing artist, she co-founded ELSMALNASCUTS and the VVAA collective. Currently, Elena is writing the series Veneno and preparing for the play This is Real Love at Teatre Lliure. Creatura is her sophomore feature film.
The official synopsis: “After moving in with her boyfriend to their new home, Mila begins to realize her loss of desire lies deep within. She undergoes a self-exploration journey in which she revisits experiences of her childhood and adolescence in hopes to reconcile with her own body.”
"When Mila and her partner move to a town on the Costa Brava, a heated argument leads her to seek solace in her family's summer house, where childhood and adolescent memories resurface, helping her understand the origins of her body image struggles."
Set against a visually evocative backdrop, the film explores a relationship with the body and questions societal norms. Creatura presents a pursuit of a woman's quest for self-acceptance and personal reconciliation.
The director revealed at the San Sebastian Work in Progress presentation that she seeks to address the consequences of normalizing female sexual repression by delving into the taboo world of infant female sexuality, which they believe is the origin of this unconscious repression.
By guiding a thirty-year-old woman from her fear of rejection in the present towards the purest forms of pain – disgust and shame, both emotions related to repression and abuse – the director aims to help her reconnect with her desire.
