Creatura / by Elena Martín

Creatura / Dir. Elena Martín / Drama / Spain / 2023 / 112'

Languages: Catalan with English Subtitles

One of the most-talked film phenomena of the year, Creatura has opened a long-neglected debate around female desire, taboo, family and partner’ companionship. Winner of the prestigious Europa Cinemas Award in the last Cannes Film Festival Directors Fortnight, Elena Martín Gimeno takes us to the Costa Brava region to follow the sexual awakening journey of Mila, the protagonist of the film, through three different ages.

Creatura, the body as breakwater. Just as the sea waves and the strong winds of the Costa Brava region impact on her body, adapting and modeling to the rugged rocks of this part of Catalonia, the body of Mila acts as a seawall where family silences, early sexual encounters, friendships, fears and traumas clash and model her relationship with sex and desire. A film that is told through time, as much as through sound and images textures, a powerful, brave, tremendously physical and sensorial film where Martin Gimeno herself puts her own body at the front to play adult Mila. Creatua is not so much about the things that we see, as much as those things we never dared to speak but we all felt in our own skin. Understandably so, the release of the film in Spanish cinemas opened up a huge cultural debate around desire and sexuality.

Creatura is one of those films that guarantees post screenings conversations where the “I felt that too, but never knew how to express it” and the “I never thought you felt that way” will come out. Martin Gimeno gives us a sketchbook of images, sounds and details that connect her film with feminist references that span from Vivian Gornick to Catalan pioneer writer Catarina Albert (who signed under the male nickname Víctor Català).