• Argentine director Sabrina Campos’s first feature film, which is competing in the 23FICLPGC’s Official Section, will be screened on Tuesday 23 at 8:30 p.m. and on Thursday 25 at 6:15 p.m. at Cine Yelmo Las Arenas
• Ten works premiering in Spain as part of the Film Festival will compete for this 23rd edition’s Lady Harimaguadas, among other awards
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Why does a woman look incomplete if she doesn’t have a partner at the age of 40? Ven a mi casa esta Navidad (Come to My Place This Christmas) (Argentina, 2023, 83 min.) is director and screenwriter Sabrina Campos’ first feature film. This dramatic comedy now competing in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival’s Official Feature Film Section invites us to inhabit the skin of an adult woman who, because she is neither a mother nor a couple, lives under the pressure of her family’s social mandate.
Sabrina Campos, who’s made her directorial debut with this intimate and sensory film, met with the Festival’s press this Tuesday morning. The filmmaker explained that Ven a mi casa esta noche is the emotional journey of a woman who navigates between vulnerability and strength under the weight of others’ gaze, while feeling judged for her life choices and her place in the world as a woman.
“A 40-year-old woman’s emotional journey” in which she has to endure uncomfortable questions about why she is not a mother, does not have a partner or is unstable in terms of jobs. And always, “under the watchful eye of others.” “They pigeonhole you,” and this, she said, “changes one’s view of oneself.” Others, she maintained, seeing you alone, “feel free to comment on your life” with “hurtful and harsh remarks.” “I’m not alone. I’m single, which is different,” she stressed. That’s why she decided to condense all these questions into one night through this film.
Pushed by having to make a shorter project on a script she was working on, she shot this “ambitious” film, which emerged from a memory of her last Christmas (before the pandemic), with a “very tight” budget, in a very short time and during the pandemic nights. But “with a lot of effort, sacrifice and love,” explained the director.
In this portrait of a Christmas Eve dinner full of oppressive climates, “such as the dinner, the toast, the gifts or the fireworks”, the director manages to recreate the discomfort of celebrating the holidays with a smile when “these kinds of rituals” take place. And she does it through “subtle violence”, because “it’s about a family full of love, but they don’t have the tools.”
The family, said the Argentine director, “wants to help Inés,” a role played by Leonora Balcarce, who became “an ally” during the filming of the feature, “working a lot on the feelings and thoughts she had to convey with those little gestures and looks.” What the main character thinks “is represented in the image, and what she feels and the emotion of the situation, in the sound,” she remarked.
The Argentine filmmaker did not want to end the press conference without thanking the Las Palmas Film Festival for giving her the opportunity to present her film and lamented her country’s constant crisis situation, which “is worrying and alarming.” This film could be made, she said, thanks to the support of the Film Institute, which is now at a standstill.
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