Clara- an attractive- sophisticated and unmarried woman- and the autistic child who transforms and absorbs her life- astonishingly interpreted by a very young Victoria Abril and autistic actor Julito de la Cruz- Mater Amatsima astonished audiences at Cannes Festival by providing an extreme dissection of the mother-child bond in an uneasily honest and rather confrontational way.
Acting
Victoria Abril's ferocious, unsentimental descent into maternal obsession.
Direction
Salgot's brutal intimacy—no relief, no distance, no escape.
Practical Effects
Casting an autistic actor in 1980 was practically unheard of.
Director
Josep Antoni Salgot i Vila
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Julito de la Cruz was not a professional actor; Salgot found him through autism support networks in Barcelona.
Released four years after Franco's death, the film's suffocating domesticity reads as metaphor for Spain's own trapped identity.
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