Film alumna Mariana Saffon ’19 has been awarded the prestigious Baumi Script Development Award for her first feature Mar de Leva. Now in its 9th edition, the award includes a €20,000 prize.
Mar de Leva tells the story of Elena, who, during a visit to the seaside, comes across a three-year-old boy clinging to her leg in the sea, very close to the high waves. Suddenly, the boy disappears. Elena tries to get on with her life. But the memory of how she looked for her own parents on the beach as a child brings to light the pain and the source of her fear of becoming a mother herself.
“Mariana Saffon's treatment sees the protagonist Elena having to face her greatest fear: becoming a mother,” the jury said in its statement. “It is the portrait of a woman in crisis who is confronted with a guilt that is not her own, but has its origins in her deepest fears. At the same time, the story is an accurate portrayal of social prejudices about motherhood, the burden of the patriarchal legacy and the complex social context of class differences in Colombia. The precise narrative with Hitchcockian elements convinced us and we are looking forward to this new voice of Latin American cinema.”
The Baumi Script Development Award was presented in February 2016 for the first time in memory of the film producer and distributor Karl ‘Baumi’ Baumgartner. The prize was established by the donors Martina and Sandra Baumgartner, Pandora Film, the company Baumi co-founded, and the production company Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. Screenwriters can apply for the award with an English-language treatment.
Mariana Saffon is a Colombian writer and director based between Mexico City and Bogotá. She has directed short films and commercials in Colombia, Morocco, Mexico and the US. She went through her undergraduate studies in Bogotá. In 2019 she was the recipient of the Milos Forman Directing Fellowship and the Adrienne Shelly Award for Best Female Director. Her latest short film Between You and Milagros (Entre tú y Milagros), won the Orizzonti award for Best Short Film at the 77th Venice International Film Festival in 2020, the Best Short Film Award at the Hamptons Film Festival and the DGA Jury Award for Best Latino Director for the East Coast. The short film garnered more than 80 selections around the world, won 17 awards and is now featured in The New Yorker Magazine Screening Room and on the Criterion Channel.
