Posted 26 November 2025
Left to right: Professor Sonia García López, Professor Núria Triana Toribio, Katixa Agirre, Professor Sally Faulkner. Photo courtesy of Cambridge Film Festival.
During the 44th Cambridge Film Festival, ‘Leading Women’ hosted a post-screening Q&A session with Basque novelist Katixa Agirre, author of the book “Las madres no” (“Mothers Don’t”), adapted for the screen by Catalan filmmaker Mar Coll as Salve Maria. The film stars Laura Weissmahr in a genre-bending exploration of postpartum depression and the irrational facets of motherhood. Coll approached the source novel with a fittingly cinematic vision, ensuring the spotlight remained on the protagonist and her ambivalent experiences as a new mother.
The screening and conversation were presented at the Cambridge Film Festival in partnership with the AHRC-funded project Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Film and Television (1970–1980), the film sparks a conversation about the intergenerational legacy of women filmmakers on Thursday 30th October. Salve Maria was introduced by Prof. Núria Triana Toribio and the Q&A was led by Professor Sonia García López (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) and Prof. Sally Faulkner (University of Cambridge).
Left to right: Professor Sonia García López, Katixa Agirre, Professor Sally Faulkner. Photo courtesy of Cambridge Film Festival
Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Cinema and Television,1970-1980