By Marieke Steinhoff. A small village in the highlands, a family about to go to bed. Little Margarita doesn't want to go to sleep yet but wants to read instead. Father Andres is angry, mother Matilde just wants to make everyone happy. The next day Andres departs to look for work in the villages close by – and doesn't return. Disturbed by the talk of the town – a neighbour's husband also went away and never came back, leaving only a less than friendly letter to his wife – Matilde nervously stares at the note she has found in the pocket of her husband's jacket; the problem's solution seems to lie within this piece of writing; alas: Matilde can't read.

Director Rosario Fuentenebro Yubero tells this little drama in a straight and matter-of-fact way, fully trusting his actors and the exact mise-en-scène. Editing and camera work remain quiet and surpressed, most of the story happens just there in Matilde's face when watching her eagerly reading daughter with a mixture of overwhelming, affection and irritation; or when she tries to hide her despair about Andres' leaving from her neighbours. The suspense about Andres' reason to stay away in gingerly constructed, simultaneously giving the impulse for Matilde to challenge her fate as an illiterate and try to learn how to read with the help of her daughter. In the end the content of Andres' note is not only a surprise for a newly reading Matilde but also for the audience, leading the way to a double-sided happy end: Andres can be found and brought to Matilde, who in his absence has learned to discover new sides of herself, when she's on her own – and who accomplished things she never thought she could.

Links

• LA M CON LA A (E 2008. Rosario Fuentenebro Yubero)
• A Little Homage – An interview with Rosario F. Yubero
• A Steady Rise – Marieke Steinhoff about the Spanish film market