Gran Canaria’s debut feature Macu Machin transcends simple labels. It isn’t a documentary, yet it isn’t pure fiction either, because every moment depicted is grounded in real life. The film centers on Carmen Machín and her relatives Elsa Machín and Maura Pérez, the director’s mother and two aunts. The project grew from a fascination with bringing these three women together to confront a family taboo that has lingered for decades. Produced for a small cadre of Spanish presentations at the Berlinale, the movie travels outside the festival’s official competition. The director notes that fiction could serve as a form of catharsis, a way to process deep, lingering truths. The plot follows Elsa and Maura as they return to the island after twenty years, converging with Carmen in a bid to sort their parents’ estate. The reunion stirs long-suppressed conflicts, and Maura’s progressive illness intensifies the tension. For the trio, the act of making the film also served as therapy, one that defied expectations and found a surprising path to resolution.
Leaf litter lends dramatic weight to climate elements rather than natural forces alone. The eruption of Cumbre Vieja in the fall of 2021 occurred during filming, a moment many viewed as tragedy. The filmmaker concedes that the production became a powerful metaphor within the story, almost a fourth character in its own right. It symbolized the unspoken feelings of the protagonists, feelings tied to the lives led by women who carry the family burden. The island’s reality mirrors that found in many households: men seek opportunities abroad, while women stay to tend the land and uphold the family. The film serves as a tribute to those women and the quiet strength they embody.
Surviving in Fujimori’s Peru
Queens presents a tightly woven fiction that remains closely tied to the director’s biography. It is not claimed as a personal autobiography, yet it channels the emotions experienced during real life. Klaudia Reynicke explains that the project is not a direct recounting, but it captures the emotional core of a journey. The film was shown in competition in Germany, underscoring its international reception. The narrative traces a move from Lima to Europe undertaken when the director was a child, reflecting how language and cultural ties shifted over time. The work is co-produced by Inicia Films, a Spanish company known for recent successes in Latin American cinema and beyond. The movie navigates a family history shaped by migration and the upheavals that accompanied it, with reflections on a father learning to adapt as daughters left home for the United States with their mother, and the larger story of a family trying to stay connected as the world around them changed.
The filmmaker states that this is not a political film, yet the context of leaving a country under pressure is central. The portrayal resolves around the need to revisit and understand origins, especially the ways in which violence and social upheaval—along with inflation and political turmoil—shaped individual lives. The setting places the action amid a country haunted by violent episodes and the strain of leadership challenges. The director, whose third feature seeks to heal a personal connection to birthplace, notes a renewed sense of belonging, describing a journey toward a more integrated sense of self that encompasses Peruvian, Swiss, and American identities. Since becoming a parent, the drive to understand roots has grown stronger, and Queens largely satisfies that ongoing quest to discover where one comes from and where one is headed.