Amando a Martha

"When director Daniela López was just about to start living with her partner, she received a worrying letter from her grandmother Martha. Martha had noticed that Daniela’s boyfriend is very domineering, and verbally violent. Having herself been subjected to psychological terror in a bad marriage for 39 years, Martha wants a very different life for her granddaughter. If only there had been someone there to warn her when she was young and naive.
It seems like the time is ripe for making the film Martha first proposed many years before, dealing with how her husband Amando made her life hell. What looks at first to be the story of Martha’s life, explored in intimate conversations between grandmother and granddaughter, gradually expands into a complex family drama in which the film project itself becomes a divisive issue.
In voice-over, López explains just how divided the family is, and that not everyone wants to be in her documentary. Increasingly, the subject of the film becomes the making of the film itself, and the way different generations deal with trauma and loyalty."
(IDFA - International Documentary Festival Amsterdam)

Cuando cumplí 17 años y había decidido que quería estudiar cine, mi abuela Martha se acercó a mí con un diario y cuatro casetes de audio en sus manos, me dijo: "Vea, aquí tiene su primera película". Se trataba de un diario que comenzaba narrando con su letra la fecha de su boda: "Contraje matrimonio católico con Amando López López el 19 de junio de 1965".
No se trataba de una historia de amor, el diario contenía las dolorosas anécdotas del maltrato que mi abuelo Amando le había propinado a mi abuela Martha durante 39 años. En los casetes, estaban los audios que mi abuela grababa cuando el abuelo llegaba en estado de embriaguez a amenazarla. Casi todas las noches le gritaba que la iba a matar. Para ese entonces yo tenía 8 años y dormía al lado de ella.