Júlia ist

Elena Martín

Spain, 2017 - 90'

Going on Erasmus can be fun, but also so difficult to cope with as a winter in Berlin.

Plot

Elena Martín, the main actress of Les Amigues de l'Àgata, jumps into directing in a new generational movie, of which she also performs the main role. The film turns upside down the convention of 'funny Erasmus stories', introducing the 'not-that-pleasant' experience in a winterish Berlin. Developed as a final degree project, the film is sharply honest. It depicts, with a straight-from-the-source perspective, fluently plain and naturalistic, the toll of being independent for the first time.

#women #womanfilmmaker #comingofage #Berlin #Europe #Erasmus #debut #youngadult #Barcelona

Full Cast and Crew

Director: Elena Martín

Writers: Elena Martín, María Castellvi, Marta Cruañas, Pol Rebaque

Film Editing: Ariadna Ribas, Diana Toucedo

Cinematography: Pol Rebaque

Cast: Elena Martín, Oriol Puig, Laura Weissmahr, Jakob Daprile, Remi Pradere, Paula Knüpling, Carla Linares, Max Grosse

Elena Martín

Elena Martín (Barcelona, 1992) became known when she played the lead in the film Les amigues d’Àgata (Agatha’s Friends), the name of which some critics have taken to christen an entire generation of (highly personal) new Catalan women filmmakers: a Generation Agatha that makes autobiographical, intimate and delicate films. Martín moves back and forth between cinema and theatre, between acting and direction. Three years after the release of the film that brought her to the public eye, she made her debut as a director with Júlia Ist, in which she also plays a young woman who leaves Barcelona to do an Erasmus in Berlin. The film, which began as an end-of-degree project at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, stole hearts at various competitions, such as the Malaga Film Festival, where it won the Biznaga de Plata for the Best Director, and the Valencia International Film Festival, where Martín won the Un Futur de Cine [A future of film] award.