Pilar Palomero’s debut film Las niñas was a big hit at the Malaga festival two years ago and won several Goya awards and she’s currently presenting her second film La Maternal here in the Official Selection. The director revealed that her film came out of a suggestion that her producer, Valerie Lapierre, made that she should visit a centre for teenage mothers. She admitted that it wasn’t something that was initially close to her heart, but that when she discovered the reality of the situation that these girls had gone through, and saw how enthusiastic they were about sharing their stories she realized that this was what her next film was going to be about. She also acknowledged that it was an atypical project insofar as she wrote the script at the same time as she was carrying out the research process. Many of the young mothers she interviewed while she was preparing the film were at the press conference that the director gave yesterday and they all stressed how taking part in it had transformed their lives.