Made in Mud
Date:
December 15, 2022
Made in Mud
Made in Mud
by Anna Llargués
Mayo Films | Spain
Live-action feature |1st feature
Logline
Èlia left their village at age of 8. At 13, she decides to return to spend the summer with her friend Juna. Seeking the idyllic haven she recalls, she will discover an abandoned space in nature that has succumbed to tourism.
Synopsis
Èlia and Juna have been friends since childhood.
They grew up in a small village where they spent long and lonely summers dressing up, inventing characters and filming movies with a family handycam.
Over the last summers, the abandonment of the village in nature has
turned it into a tourist attraction, which jeopardises the preservation of some of the natural settings and transforms the older homes. Therefore, Èlia had to move to the city with her family at the age of 8.
Confident that their separation would be temporary and in a matter
of years they would be able to acquire the property, the friends recorded the inside of the house, imagining how they would renew it, and hid the VHS films between some tiles.
Four years later, for her thirtieth birthday, Juna invites her best friend to spend the summer in the village. Both friends will go back to a period of development where they will discover themselves in different situations to those they were used to.
The village will welcome summer visitors, among whom will be Èlia’s old house owners: a French family.
The girls will hide their relationship with the house and set themselves the goal of recovering their recordings. This will lead to the coexistence of the innocent friendship between young people and the inevitable feeling of invasion.
Meanwhile, a hotel construction will be announced and will mean
the disappearance of the renowned firefly forest.
While Èlia tries to reconcile with the memory of what used to be her
home, the girls will strive to regain confidence and the camera will
be part of their daily lives again. Èlia’s perspective of Juna in the recordings will gradually reveal feelings of which she was unaware,
and will confront her with her conception of love.
They will become aware of the passing of time, the changes in their
bodies, the transformation of the space where they grew up and
the affection they feel for each other.
Director’s Profile
Anna Llargués, (1999, Barcelona), is a graduate of ESCAC, specializing in directing and completing a postgraduate program in editing at BSM-UPF. She began her career as a director at the age of 22 with “Trenc d’Alba,” a fiction short film created as her final degree project, which premiered internationally at Cannes as part of the La Cinef section and nationally at Seminci, where it received a Special Mention in the “Espiga Verde” Award.
Currently, she is working on the script and pre-production of “De Fang,” her first feature film, and also on “Àvia Peix,” a short film of a personal nature. Meanwhile, she hold a position as a professor at ESCAC and lead cinematography workshops in high schools. Moreover, she actively collaborate in various capacities within the direction department and serve as an acting coach for different Catalan productions, particularly focusing on inexperienced child actors.
Company Profile
Mayo Films has a vocation to produce projects, getting involved
from the conception of the idea to its exhibition.
With a clear intention to work in Europe (both in national and international co-production). In 2017 we released “The Girl from the song”, Ibai Abad’s debut film, on Netflix, in co-production with ESCAC Films. Moreover, the short films “Tahití” and “La otra vida” by Ibai Abad, were premiered at the Sitges Festival and gave way
to “Sol creciente”, by Guillem Manzanares, a candidate for the
Gaudí Awards; “De Raíz”, by Carles Pons, and “Harta”, a short
by Júlia de Paz. Harta is on distribution by Marvin&Wayne and
premiered internationally at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival.
The short was also selected in the official section of the 25th Malaga
Festival, where it won the Silver Biznaga for best actress (Anna
Caponneto) and Silver Biznaga for best actor (Julián Villagrán);
it also won the Feroz award for best short film of 2022 in CINEMAJOVE festival, and the awards for best actress and best actor in the Ibero-American Contest of Spanish Version’-SGAE.
Lastly, it won the Gaudí Award for best short film in 2023. In the
year coming, this 2024, we will premiere “Gold Lust” the last
feature film by Ibai Abad, developing “Made in mud”, Anna Llargués’ first feature film and we’ll be shooting “HARTA” by Júlia de Paz, a feature film adaptation of her homonymous short. It is an
international co-production with Avalon and Krater Films (BELGIUM) with Beta Cinema on world sales.