Madrid Film School Project ‘Flowers of an Absent Mother’ Explores Self-Acceptance
variety.comCallum McLennan SAN SEBASTIAN — Among the diverse projects emerging from the Madrid Film School ECAM incubator, “Flowers For An Absent Mother” (“Flores para una madre ausente”), the feature debut of writer-director Ana Puentes Margarito, is poised to stand out for its intimate yet universally resonant story of family conflict and emotional recovery.
Workshopped and refined through labs like LabGuion, FinLab and ECAM’s prestigious Incubator, the project has undergone a transformative journey.
Puentes Margarito credits screenwriter Isabel Peña (“The Beasts,” “The Candidate”) as a key mentor in shaping the film’s final script. “For me, it was like shifting our minds: someone from the outside comes and tells us things we haven’t seen,” Puentes Margarito told Variety. “The version we have now is much closer to the story I will tell.” The project is now nearing a key moment as it awaits news from the ICAA selective funding, a critical step toward production next year.
The film was originally conceived as a short titled “My Life At The Beginning” which premiered at the Seville European Film Festival in 2022.
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