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Esperanza

Esperanza resorts to absurd measures to save her career when a pregnancy turns her life upside down.

synopsis

At 38, Esperanza is a top environmental engineer in Spain. She worked hard for a job she loves, and now she is on the brink of a promotion. Her partner Leo is a sweet and struggling novelist. Esperanza adores him and everything is great – until she unexpectedly gets pregnant. Leo, aware this may be their last chance, begs her to keep the baby. But when, a few months later, she tells her boss she is pregnant and gets fired, Esperanza despairs as they both find themselves unemployed, unable to pay rent, and forced to move in with her mother in an uninhabited suburb of Madrid. Despite her growing belly, Esperanza goes on a raging and increasingly absurd battle against her firm to get re-admitted to work, while Leo prepares himself for her motherhood with Lamaze classes and breathing exercises. Can a couple survive this inversion of roles? Will Esperanza win her war against social injustice and discrimination? Can society accept a husband that becomes a wife and a woman that becomes a warrior?

Director’statement

“Esperanza” is a deeply subversive film masked as a comedy. This is a small story about real people with real jobs, over a hot summer in the Spanish capital. Leo and Esperanza are not a perfect couple, but they are happy. With this film we aim to shed light on a type of woman and a type of man rarely represented on screen: a man who is more interested in being a father – or mother – and a mother not interested in being a mother at all. The aim is to write a provocative film that humorously guides us through the paradoxical ups and downs of this couple, as they face the obstacles and prejudices that society and a chauvinist work environment throw their way. The viewer will be both endeared and frustrated with Leo and Esperanza as they blindly pursue their obsessions – Leo with preparing himself for the baby’s arrival, despite their lack of money or even a house of their own; Esperanza of getting back a job in a company that is clearly run by idiots and hypocrites. Despite their mistakes and ridiculous actions, the audience will be catapulted into their upside down universe and forced to confront their own attitudes and preconceptions towards such an extreme inversion of roles within a couple.

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TFL Catalogue 2017

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