'Rara' A Reflexive Film at Havana Film Festival

Havana, Dec 13 (Prensa Latina) Chilean director, Pepa San Martin, is showing her first work ''Rara'' today at the 38th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana.

'Cuban audiences are incredible, they are professional moviegoers and when the show ends, people stop you at the street, talk to you, ask about the movie,' San Martin says.

'I wanted to tell a story from perspective of Sara, a 13-year-old girl who reaches adolescence with separated parents, who are constantly fighting,' she explains.

'Children are not born with prejudices, they begin to acquire them during upbringing and that is what happens to Sara, who has a lesbian mother,' she adds.

The film is based on a real case from Chile, of a judge who went to live with her children and her female partner, but later her ex-husband asked her for custody of the children.

Although she won custody twice, he finally succeeded in bringing the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the father. The mother spent 12 years of her life on the lawsuit, until the Inter-American Court of Justice gave her custody again.

Same-sex marriage is not approved in Chile and there is a kind of legal limbo with respect to the children raised by these couples.

Chilean actress, Mariana Loyola, plays the role of Sara's mother.

'Sara, the girl, is a victim of society, herself and her environment, but she undergoes a transformation and begins to defend herself from that world, from what she considers unfair,' says Loyola.