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LA VIRGEN DE LA TOSQUERA Enchanted Audiences at the 23rd FICM

Omar Sosa

The Argentinian, Mexican, and Spanish co-production La virgen de la tosquera (2025, dir. Laura Casabé) premiered during the 23rd Morelia International Film Festival (FICM). Actress Fernanda Echeverría and producers Diego Martínez Ulanosky and Livi Herrera presented the screening.

The film is an adaptation of two short stories by Argentinian writer and journalist Mariana Enriquez, which can be found in her book Los peligros de fumar en la cama: El Carrito y La Virgen de la Tosquera. Speaking through a video projected before the screening, the author thanked the Mexican audience for welcoming the adaptation of her stories at FICM.

Natalia, Mariela, and Josefina are inseparable friends, who are madly in love with their childhood friend Diego. In the turbulent summer of 2001, Silvia, a worldly older woman, shows up and captivates him. Natalia then asks her grandmother for help, which will lead her into the realm of spells and black magic.

After the screening, the actress and producers held a brief Q&A session with the festival's audience.

Echeverría said that the character she plays is a young woman who escapes her reality and lives a lie. “Regardless of what is happening in her socioeconomic context in Argentina and in her own life, what characterizes her is partying, enjoyment, and self-deception,” she said.

Highlighting the social terror that Mariana Enriquez writes about, the actress said, “I believe that there is no greater horror than what we, as people, are capable of doing.” Her way of dealing with this is through art, resorting to tenderness and passion.

Talking briefly about her character-building process, she said she avoided falling into the cliché of the Argentine dialect at all costs. Her relationships with people from Buenos Aires throughout her life helped her understand the context in which the story takes place and her character operates.

The producer, Livi Herrera, talked about Mexico and Spain's contributions to the Argentine production. At first, the collaboration was a union of financial forces, but as production progressed, several Mexicans joined the team.

Diego Martínez explained the difficulties they faced while making the project happen. Securing the rights to the stories was complicated, but once the author learned more about the project, she decided to support and advise on some stages of production.

A major hurdle was the loss of Argentinian public funding for fiction films, as filming coincided with the closure of the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA).

The session ended with loud applause and the sensation of an audience satisfied with the film they had just seen.