Directed and written by Carla Simón
Initial Release - February 2017
This is a film about a six year old orphan, Frida (Laia Artigas) - singularly pleasing in that there is no need of Kleenex. Carla Simón, in her first feature film is deserving of high praise. She uses two children to tell the story of Frida's displacement, despite their inability to express emotion verbally. Their story is devoid of sentimentality. Instead of inserting adult sentiment and speech into the mind and mouth of Frida, her character is permitted to express emotion through behaviour, both good and bad. Verbally, Frida and Anna (Paula Robles) are blanks. Anna is a lovely little blonde pudding, full of innocence and charm - the three-to-four year old child of Frida's new parents. Scenes of their play imitating adults in Frida's life, unconsciously betray the negligence of Frida's deceased mother.
How can Frida replace Anna or equal her, in the eyes of her new parents? This issue cannot be resolved without patient and prudent responses from her new parents - her mother's brother, Esteve (David Verdaguer) and his partner, Marga (Bruna Cusi). Both are compromised by the native love for their biological daughter and the elusive need to find an emotionally secure place for Frida, in their new family.
Frida has to confront other issues: the frightening physical displacement, from city life to a mountainside pueblo, and the pain of separation from her previous family of indulgent grandparents and aunts. Essential to her well being and the acceptance of her new family, is an explanation of her mother's death. Can the joy of the moment between a father and his daughters, and the design of a mother for her daughters, overcome Frida's resistance?
Foot Notes:
Carla Simón aged six, was sent to live with her uncle and aunt after her parents died. The summer of 1993 was the first time she spent with her new family. "...I have sweet memories of it and I wanted to translate them. We shot in the area where I was raised."
The casting: "It was quite long about five or six months. The casting director, Mireia Juarez, saw almost 1,000 children for all the roles in the movie. In fact Laia was the penultimate girl that we saw. Because I could not find her. And when we were almost done, Laia appeared."
Rehearsals: "We did a long process of rehearsals with Bruna, David and the children for the girls to believe the relationships. We played for hours, for instance, four hours playing that the four of them were a family. Doing this, they built memories that were used during the shoot. The girls never read the script. If I wanted the girls to say something, I told them before the take."
"Every sequence includes Frida."
Estiu 1993 director Carla Simón
Note: The above quotes of Carla Simón were taken from Kristina Zorita's interview with her for the European Women's Audiovisual Network http://www.ewawomen.com/en/events/interview-with-director-carla-simon.html
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