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Mar de Leva

After a child disappears on a beach, Elena is forced to confront her biggest fear: becoming a mother.

synopsis

Elena travels to Capurganá, a remote town in Colombia, to try and sell her family’s old beach house and cover the medical expenses of her father’s illness. At the beach, she meets Teo, a three-year-old boy wandering on the shore while his mother is busy selling necklaces. Elena spends the afternoon with Teo and as the boy shuttles back and forth between Elena and his mother, their responsibility blurs – until, unnoticed, Teo disappears, probably in the sea. Despite an intensive search, Teo is nowhere to be found. In shock, Elena must return to the city, where she tries to go back to juggling her work as a doctor, caring for her ill father, and a pregnancy she’s been keeping a secret. When Teo’s father arrives in the city begging for help, her guilt about the accident deepens, forcing her to face her fear and the weight of her own impending motherhood.

Director’statement

When I was eight, I witnessed a woman on a beach asking my mom to take her child, out of despair and necessity, to give him a better life. This moment stayed with me, and only now as I’m thinking of becoming a mother myself do I understand that what I witnessed then is what I’ve been trying to explore in my work: the judgement and guilt inherent in motherhood. Mar de Leva opens with a mother’s greatest tragedy: the disappearance of her child, an accident, and a mother who, to bear the pain, tells herself that another woman might be responsible for it. Elena, my character, is that other woman. One whose life crumbles under the repercussions of a traumatic event in the lives of others. I’ve always been intrigued by how apparently unrelated events share a logic of their own and, when juxtaposed, reveal a truth that goes beyond mere understanding. Through my lens, I want to grasp Elena’s transformative journey from living under false certainties to understanding life based on true doubts.

TFL PROGRAMME:
FeatureLab 2025

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