Cinco lobitos

Amaia has just become a mother. Feeling overwhelmed and with her partner away, she seeks refuge with her parents in the hope that they will look after mother and baby in her childhood home, in a lovely coastal village in the Basque Country.

But life has other plans, her mother falls ill and it’s Amaia who will have to look after all of them. She finds herself living the life her mother had thirty years before. She becomes a housewife, with an absent partner, caring for a baby and a sick grandmother. Family roles are reversed, changing their relationships forever. The daughter becomes everyone’s mother. Amaia, who until now only loved her mother, will start to understand her.

In her sensitive directorial debut feature film, director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa examines the special situation in which young parents find themselves and depicts the challenges this poses for their relationship; she also explores the topics of absent fathers and the cross-generational role that women play as carers. Thanks to a marvellous cast, Cinco lobitos takes an undiluted and intimate look at the emotions that exist within families – emotions that are at times oppressive and at others painfully absent.

The screening on Sat 11 Mar will be introduced by Dr Carmen Herrero, Manchester Metropolitan University.