Mercedes Resino and the mothers who never stopped searching
Mercedes Resino has spent years making documentaries about people whose voices tend to be left out. After Por ser mujer and Revolucionarias, the Catalonia-based director turned to one of the darkest chapters of recent Spanish history: the babies taken from their mothers from the end of the Civil War well into the democratic era. The result, Who Am I? A State Matter, which she directed and co-wrote with journalist Esteban Creste, is a finalist for Best Documentary Feature Film at Films Infest (New York City), which has published a long interview with both filmmakers.
Listening first
Resino explains that the project grew out of two years of research and conversations with victims and human rights experts. Some of the women who appear in the film, mothers whose babies were taken and adopted children searching for their origins, speak about it on camera for the first time. Her approach to those interviews was careful and patient, always attentive to how each person was feeling, and at the end she offered them the chance to take back anything they had said. Hardly anyone did.
“Most of them always wanted to share even more.”
She also shaped the film’s structure and edited it herself: first the historical context, then the democratic years through first-hand accounts, and finally the consequences, with many voices to show that these were not isolated cases.
The women who keep searching
What stayed with her most was not the archives or the institutions, but the women. She speaks of the depth of their pain, the dignity with which they carry it and the way the search passes from mothers to their children and grandchildren.
“Above all, what strikes one is the strength of these women, who continue to fight in search of their children until the end of their days.”
For Resino, the stolen babies are one of the most serious legacies of the Franco regime, and a problem that society cannot leave to the authorities alone.
“This issue is also a social one, although the State must resolve it.”
She hopes international audiences will understand that this happened not only in Spain, that thousands of families are still searching, and that the film can push those with influence to act. The documentary is set to screen on 21 November at the Producers Club in New York, a session still to be confirmed in the festival schedule.