"I celebrate every time someone writes bad things about motherhood, because it makes me feel better."

BarcelonaAfter the apparent eclecticism of the Kosmopolis festival in bringing together a Galician writer in a single session, Berta Dávila, a Catalan filmmaker, Carla Simón, and a scriptwriter who is "proudly charnego", Eduard Sola, there was a theme that challenges all three of them: the creative exploration of the most intimate bonds, whether family, friendship or sentimental.

"Creating a story about ourselves and explaining ourselves is essential, and I think it's not done as often as it should be," Carla Simón, who set the scene for her latest film, explained to the CCCB. Pilgrimage, in the Galician setting where the parents of the protagonist, Marina, were happy, but also became addicted to heroin. It is an exercise in family reconciliation consistent with Summer 1993 (2017) and Alcarràs (2022). "The family memory we don't have and will never know is one of the topics that worries me the most," he said. "On the other hand, memories transform for your own convenience as time goes by. Pilgrimage It's helped me free myself from the idea that truth doesn't exist. I've reached a point where I no longer know what I've invented and what really happened," she confessed.

"Literature allows you to connect with someone's intimate voice in a very clear way," Berta Dávila explained. Loved ones (Las Horas / Destino, 2024) explores how a woman finds herself, five years after becoming a mother, facing the dilemma of deciding whether she wants to be one again, in The imaginary wound (Las Horas / Destino, 2023) linked the story of two pairs of sisters who have grown apart and are about to witness the first solar eclipse that can be seen in northern Galicia in a long time. "You often work with materials that have an autobiographical root, and then you force yourself to be rigorous with the facts, but perhaps you are more true to yourself when you clean up the world through fiction," Dávila assured.

"My authorship is more hidden than theirs, because they usually call me and ask me to write a script on a specific subject, but, even so, what ends up coming out has a lot of things of me and what I know," said the prolific Eduard Sola, who at the last awards gala while collecting the award for best screenplay for House on fire, the film directed by Dani de la Orden (2024). "There are people who stop me on the street and tell me that I wrote about their mother: this is where the power of fiction ends. If there is any mother I thought about when I wrote House on fire and other films I've written was mine," she recalled.

Guided by journalist David Guzmán, the three creators have also addressed issues such as the interrelation between the style and themes of their books and films. Also about the presence of motherhood in their creations. "It is very codified what it seems to feel like, when you have heard. motherhood both in Summer 1993 as Pilgrimage from the daughter's point of view. "I've been a mother for three years, and this issue will come up sooner or later in what I do," she said. "On the second day of being a mother, you realize that until then you knew nothing. We need a lot of collective reflection on this type of bond. Right now, I'm full of contradictions, trying to work, balance, and mother better," the filmmaker added. Sola, like Simón and Dávila, is also in the midst of parenting. "If my daughter has a fever and I have a work meeting, I give her Apiretal, and when it takes effect, I take her to school," Sola admitted, prompting laughter from the audience. "If I laughed, it's because everyone has done it at some point," she concluded.