Chilean Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Maite Alberdi, will release her new documentary with stylised reconstructions on Netflix this August, in which themes of motherhood, grief and identity are explored.
Pablo Muñoz
Set in Mexico, “A child of my own” follows the almost unbelievable true story of Alejandra.
Her unwavering desire to become a mother leads her to finally fake a pregnancy that unleashes a scandal that makes it impossible for her to continue with her deception, after “a months-long charade and a full-blown media scandal.”
Mixing reality with fiction, Alberdi’s distinctive storytelling shines through a stylised reconstruction and the present-tense observation of this emotionally layered story. She raises questions around societal expectations of motherhood, fertility stigma, and the space between judgement and understanding.
The documentary, which Netflix described as “deeply human and formally daring” is written by Julián Loyola and Esteban Student, starring Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña, and made its global premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where critics from The Hollywood Reporter said that the documentary is “filled with uncanny surprises”. The magazine Variety said of it that it was “humanizing a tale that was sordid tabloid fodder in Mexico for a short time”.
In March, “A child of my own” also had a premiere at the CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, and at the Sheffield DocFest back in June, where it was revealed to be a piece of work with an innovative form for the genre while allowing for conversations that, according to Netflix, “resonate globally, with experiences shared across cultures and by women everywhere”.
Returning to this format after “In her place”, her 2024 historical crime drama film, Alberdi is the first Chilean woman to ever receive an Oscar nomination. She has been nominated twice for Best Documentary Feature, in 2021 for “The mole agent”, a meditation on aging and loneliness through an elderly undercover investigator inside a Chilean retirement home, and in 2024, for her documentary “The eternal memory”, which follows the life of Augusto Gongora -a Chilean journalist who documented human rights abuses during Pinochet’s rule- after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
The documentary will be released on 13 August on Netflix.
(Fotos: Pixabay)
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