Document Closing Gala Plaza de la Soledad

Seventeen years ago, multiple award-winning photographer Maya Goded (1967) started a photo book about the prostitutes of La Merced, a district of Mexico City. She became close friends with Carmen and Letty, a relationship that would bloom into her first feature film project:

Shot over a period of four years, Plaza de la Soledad follows a wider family of women negotiating the darkness of their pasts and the precariousness of their future on the unforgiving streets. The film is one of great warmth and humour despite the violence that permeates their lives. They overflow with the energy and bravado of youth and, as they have grown older together, they have learned how to give each other the strength to continue. Premiered at the renowned Sundance Film Festival, the film is a masterful portrait of extraordinary people and a powerful case for female autonomy.

“My intention has always been to encourage viewers to confront their own prejudices about prostitution, sex and ageing, to reflect on the complexity and the different forms that love – and loneliness – can assume” Maya Goded.