The emotionally powerful and lyrical documentary essay MAMA, the debut feature by Ecuadorean filmmaker Ana Cristina Benítez, will have its world premiere in the Persister section at the 32nd Hot Docs Festival, taking place April 24–May 4, 2025 in Toronto, Canada.
Facing a late-stage breast cancer diagnosis, Benítez's deeply personal film reflects on her years-long medical treatment and struggle to heal with poetic precision. After returning home from a trip, the 36-year-old Ana is confronted with a disquieting diagnosis that upends her life and reshapes how she sees herself. With the support of her family and partner Mateo, she embarks on a raw, unfiltered healing journey—one that reaches beyond the repair of her broken body to address a wounded soul.
This first person narrative is inter-spliced with archival footage from a camera her father sent her after he emigrated to the United States, asking the family to record themselves so he could see their lives from afar. These childhood images, marked by her father's absence, become a window into Ana's emotional world as she reflects on her personal history, familial bonds, her relationship with Mateo, and her connection to her own body.
Benítez's impressive level of filming access inside sterile hospital environments is a testament to the deeply central role the process of filming had become a lifeline for her. The camera becomes an extension of her own body—vital for transforming pain into art, allowing her to bear the unbearable.
A celebration of both vulnerability and resilience, MAMA explores what it means to reconnect—with oneself, with one's ancestors, and with the past—amid life-altering challenges. Benítez's intuitive storytelling, combined with David Navarro's commanding editing, weaves a powerful conversation between time, memory, and illness—at once beautiful and haunted by the fragility of mortality.
