"María Silvia Esteve's Criatura takes the viewer on an inner journey to the roots of its protagonist's agony. The elemental use of colors, immaculate camera work, and an ever-intensifying score all contribute to this story about the insecurities of love and the loss of oneself.
Esteve's previous work includes a feature-length documentary about her mother's toxic relationship with her father. With her new film, she continues her work on gender issues, mainly focused on women in Latin America, questioning gender perceptions, the role of women in society, and why we become who we are.
Criatura is more than just a film about pain and love. It takes us back to deep-rooted traumas and the all-encompassing question: Is the relationship with oneself the most destructive one after all?"
Anne Gaschütz

PRESS

CRIATURA

In the depths of her mind, pain takes the form of a creature. A love relationship unleashes the obscurity within, to evoke in the real world, a world of shadows.
Winner of the Pardino d’oro for the Best Auteur Short at the Locarno Film Festival, "Creature" is a sensorial experience, a journey towards what hurts. It is a glimpse into the demons for so many years silenced, that today, are pushing themselves into the surface.

• Pardino d’oro to the Best Auteur Short Film,
Concorso Corti d’autore, Locarno Film Festival
• Innovation Award, Landshuter Kurzfilmfestival.
• Grand Jury Prize, Castrovillari Film Festival.
• Best Director Winner, Castrovillari Film Festival.

Written and directed by María Silvia Esteve
Produced by María Silvia Esteve
Starring Ayelén Escalzo, Laila Desmery, Francesca Pantanetti
Cinematography by María Silvia Esteve and Andrea Cabrera
VFX and Graphic Design by Dano Marello
Editing by María Silvia Esteve
A production of HANA Films
in coproduction with Ecran Mobile & Rita Cine
Argentina - Switzerland
Running time: 16'
2021

• Online in Filmin

SELECTIONS

74º Festival International del Film Locarno. Switzerland
54º Sitges Festival Internacional Cinema Fantastic. Spain
70º Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), Australia
11º Festival International de la Roche-sur-Yon. France
5º El Gouna Film Festival. Gouna. Egypt
26º Fantasia International Film Festival, Montreal, Canada
26º Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN). South Korea
43º International Cinematographers Film Festival "Manaki Brothers". North Macedonia
27º Geneva International Film Festival. Switzerland
25º International Short Film Festival Winterthur. Switzerland
11º Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival. Romania
20° Bogoshorts. Bogotá Short Film Festival, Colombia
11º Festival de Cine Independiente de Madrid. Márgenes. Spain
WomanInFan+CIMA. Madrid. Spain
23º Festival FILMAR en América Latina. Switzerland
27º Festival du film lesbien, gay, bi, trans, queer et ++++ de Paris -
Chéries-Chéris. France
Festival Internacional de Cortometrajes de Aguilar de Campo. Spain
39º Festival Cinematográfico Internacional del Uruguay. Uruguay
16º Cinemartinique Film Festival. Martinique
OTRO AMOR • ANOTHER LOVE. CinemaAttic. Glasgow - Edinburgh - UK
19º ZINEGOAK. Festival Internacional de Cine y Artes Escénicas Gaylesbitrans. Bilbao. Spain
35º Semana de Cine Medina de Campo. Spain
22º Landshut Short Film Festival. Munich. Germany
34º Filmfest Dresden - International Short Film Festival. Germany
24º Mecal Pro, the Barcelona Int. Short and Animation Festival. Barcelona. Spain
49º Athens International Film and Video Festival. Ohio. USA
24º Pink Apple Short Film Festival. Zurich - Frauenfeld, Switzerland
Festival La Mujer y El Cine. Argentina
45º Norwegian Short Film Festival. Grimstad, Norway
13º KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival. India
13º Leiden Shorts Festival. Netherlands
23º ShorTS - International Film Festival. Trieste, Italy
9. Tenerife Shorts - La Laguna International Short Film Festival
(Islas Canarias) Spain
21º Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival - Screem Queer. Neuchâtel, Switzerland
8º Festival du Film Insolite de Rennes le Chateau. France
45º Festival du Film Court en Plein Air de Grenoble, France
4º Visible - Festival de Cine LGBTIQ+, Panama
33º São Paulo Int. Short Film Festival - Curta Kinoforum, Brasil
17º Shorts México - Festival Int. de Cortometrajes de México
33º Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg. Germany
16º Festival Internacional de Cine de Gibara. Cuba
26º International Short Film Festival Winterthur - Magic realism/creatures programme. Switzerland
20º Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. Canada
4º Castrovillari Film Festival. Italy
8° Festival de Cine Espacio Queer. La Plata, Argentina
Festival Internacional de Cine entre Glaciares. Argentina
5º Porto Femme - International Film Festival. Portugal
32º Oslo/Fusion International Film Festival. Norway
27º Seattle Queer Film Festival. USA
10cortos10, Centro Cultural 25 de Mayo. Argentina
9º Festival de Cine Nacional Leonardo Favio. Argentina
Visible, Festival de Cine LGBTI+ de Panamá. Panamá
27º LesGaiCineMad, Festival Int. de Cine LGBTI+ de Madrid. España
30º Festival Mix Brasil de Cultura da Diversidade. Sao Paulo. Brasil
9º Festival Asterisco | Cine LGBTIQ+. Buenos Aires, Argentina
34ª FICVIÑA - Festival Internacional de Cine de Viña del Mar, Chile
4º Film Maudit 2.0, Los Angeles, CA, USA
7º IbizaCineFest - Festival Internacional (Islas Baleares) Spain
29º ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Film Festival, England
1º Semana del Cine de las Mujeres, Bariloche, Argentina
17º Festival À l´Est, Rouen, France
5º The Bush Films, New York, US
19º Rennes International Fantastic Short Film Festival, France
Festival Internacional de Cine del Balsas FIC Balsas
15º Shnit Worldwide Shortfilmfestival, Playground San José. Costa Rica

MAILIN

(in post production stage)

Mailin tells her daughter a bedtime story, a metaphor unfolding the protagonists’ search to recover the memory of her past. Through a collage of archive and childhood drawings, emerges the story of a girl, who for 15 years suffered the abuses of a priest that Justice has just set free. Mailin will thus try to heal from the pain in her journey to raise her daughter.

Written and directed by María Silvia Esteve
Produced by María Silvia Esteve
Cinematography by María Silvia Esteve and Andrea Cabrera
Editing by María Silvia Esteve
Argentina
A production of HANA Films
Running time: 90'
2022

• IDFA Bertha Fund Classic
• Guadalajara Film Festival Fund - GLAFF
• 2|35 Post Production Award – Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
• Best Film - Jury's Special Mention, FIDOCS First Cut Award
• The Party Film Sales Award to the project with the
highest international potential – Visions du réel Industry
• TËNK Post-Production Award – Visions du réel Industry
• Lauréate Brouillon d’un rêve documentaire, La Scam
• Winner of the Metropolitan Fund of Arts

SELECTIONS

International Competition - IDFA 2025As a Work in Progress:
Cannes Docs - Marché du Film 2024
TIDF26 AGORA Docs, Thessaloniki International Film Festival - 2024
FIDOCS+CONECTA - 2023.
Visions du Réel Industry - 2022.
IDFA Project Space, Amsterdam - 2021.
IDFA Summer School, Amsterdam - 2019.
Biennale of Young Art Buenos Aires, Argentina - 2019.
IDFAcademy, Amsterdam - 2018.
Gender Lab MICGénero, Mexico - 2018.

"Silvia is an essay of heartbreaking rawness, honesty and sensitivity. It is so much more than a mere exercise in found-footage or a complacent home movie, but it is an intimate exploration made by the director - with contributions from her two sisters' memories - of a life marked by intrafamiliar violence, depressions, hospitalizations, and the contradictions of a woman submitted against her wishes to the mandates of others. The film proposes an external and internal journey that is at the same time a complaint against male chauvinism, a love letter, a cathartic exercise and an act of reparation."
Diego Battle

PRESS

SILVIA

A poetic family chronicle in which a diplomat’s daughter and her two sisters try to come to grips with the great drama of their mother's life. The film deals with all that pulsates beneath the omissions, the deviations that arise from trying to piece together Silvia’s memory.
Part documentary, part re-cut, the pieces of the past are accentuated, blurred, frozen, and played backward until the family chronicle becomes a universal drama, raising questions about memory, truth, illusions and appearances, as well as the nature of parent-child relationships.

Written and directed by María Silvia Esteve
Produced by María Silvia Esteve and María Fernández Aramburu
Cinematography by Carlos Esteve, Silvia Zabaljáuregui, María Alejandra Esteve, María Silvia Esteve
Editing by María Silvia Esteve
Graphic Design by Ianko Perea
A production of HANA Films
in association with Cyan
Argentina - Chile
Running time: 103'
2018

• Artistic Vision Award, Depth of Field Competition, DocAviv
• Best Argentine Documentary, FIDBA.
• Young Jury Award, FIDBA.
• Coral Award, Habana Film Festival.
• Special Mention of the Jury to the Film Editing, Argentine Association of Film Editors - EDA.

• Online in Filmin

SELECTIONS

IDFA, Amsterdam, Netherlands
DocAviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
Festival de Cine de Lima PUCP, Lima, Perú
The Documentary Week DocMontevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay
14º Festival Tucumán Cine “Gerardo Vallejo”, Tucumán, Argentina
Buenos Aires International Documentary Festival FIDBA, Argentina
Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de La Plata - 2019.
Déli-Doku, Budapest, Hungary
Valladolid International Film Festival SEMINCI, Valladolid, España
Family Film Project Porto, Porto, Portugal
34° Festival del Cinema Latino Americano di Trieste, Trieste, Italia
EQUIS, Festival de Cine Feminista, Ecuador.
Festival Film Dokumenter, Indonesia.
41 Habana Film Festival, Habana, Cuba
Femcine - Festival Cine de Mujeres, Santiago, Chile
FIM - Women's International Film Festival, São Paulo, Brasil
Cine bajo las estrellas/Señoras Directoras, Manzana de las Luces
34ª FICVIÑA - Festival Internacional de Cine de Viña del Mar, Chile
17º Festival À l´Est, Rouen, France

AS A WORK IN PROGRESS

Postproduction Coral Award, Habana Film Festival
Walla Collective Award for the Best Project, DocLisboa - Arché
Best Film Project, FemCine WIP.
Best Argentine Project, FIDBA WIP:LAB
FNA - National Fund of Arts Award
BAL - BAFICI
Selected for the Rough Cut Lab with João Moreira Salles, DocMontevideo

"The opening credits of María Silvia Esteve’s new film could hardly be more succinct and accurate in preparing you for what you are about to witness. On-screen text ‘welcomes you into… The Spiral.’ This notion of being inside the film is perhaps the best way of imagining Esteve’s sensory, experimental short, which runs at 20 minutes in length and premiered this week as part of the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes.
What follows is an avalanche of different aesthetic and aural combinations that both disorientate and transfix the viewer. Each of these sections evokes a bodily response on their own merit but strung together, they have an irresistible cumulative effect. By the time The Spiral begins to question the sanctity and safety of one’s home, its nigh on impossible not to have begun to question your trust in your own body."
Ben Nicholson

THE SPIRAL

“I’m not crazy, I’m just heartbroken” appears in neon yellow text over a kaleidoscopic rainbow spiral. A chaotic symphony composed of hypnotic images and WhatsApp voice messages, narrated by a nameless protagonist on the brink of a health-related panic attack, results in a striking exploration of anxiety, identity, and how we find a sense of home.

Written and directed by María Silvia Esteve
Produced by María Silvia Esteve
Animation, Compositing, Editing & Sound by María Silvia Esteve
Starring Emma Isabella, Richard Townley & Viveca Paoli
A production of HANA Films
in coproduction with Rita Cine
Argentina
Distirbuted by REDIANCE
Running time: 19'
2022

• 54th Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Cannes
• Grand Jury Prize for the Sound Design, AFI FEST
• Best Sound Award, Desenzano Film Festival.
• API Award, Brazilian Association of Independent Producers, Mostra Limite, São Paulo International Short Film Festival
• Honorable Mention, Curtas Vila do Conde Film Festival
• Special Mention International Shorts Award, BIEFF
• Special mention Tematic Competition, Porto Femme.

• Online in Filmin

SELECTIONS

54º Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Cannes, France
52º New Directors/New Films, MoMA & Film at Lincoln Center, NY, USA
46º Hong Kong International Film Festival, China
51º Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma. Canada
36º AFI FEST - American Film Institute Film Festival, Los Angeles, USA
37º Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata, Argentina
35º IDFA, Amsterdam, Netherlands
25º Guanajuato International Film Festival, Mexico
58º Chicago International Film Festival, USA
30º Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival, Portugal
45º Denver Film Festival, USA
30º Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival, Canada
12º Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival BIEFF, Romania
33º São Paulo International Short Film Festival, Brasil
DokuFest, International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Kosovo
9º Duhok International Film Festival, Kurdistan
28º Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland
39º Kassel Dok fest - Kasseler Dokumentarfilm, Germany
35º Filmski Festival Herceg Novi. Montenegro
34º FICVIÑA - Festival Internacional de Cine de Viña del Mar, Chile
2º Mutoscope Festival. Lyon, France
12º Festival Márgenes, Madrid, Spain
9º Seeyousound International Music Film Festival, Turin, Italy
17º Festival À l´Est, Rouen, France
23º Glasgow Short Film Festival, UK
6º PORTO FEMME International Film Festival, Portugal
20º VIENNA SHORTS – International Short Film Festival, Austria
DOCU-MENTAL Film Festival, Moscow, Russia
14º Beat Film Festival, Russia
Automata, Los Angeles, USA
85º Labocine - WATCHING IN THE DARK. New York, USA
15º SHORT WAVES FESTIVAL | Międzynarodowy Festiwal Filmów Krótkometrażowych | International Short Film Festival, Poznan, Poland
10 cortos 10 - A selection of the 10 best short films of argentine cinema. Argentina
Directed by Women Spain. Madrid, Sevilla, Spain
Desenzano Film Festival, Desenzano, Italy

FAUCES

(in early development stage)

After an attempt of suicide, Anna, a theater director, is seeking for a meaning. But the deeper she gets tangled into the toxicity of a love relationship with the scenographer of her next play, the memory of a tragic family loss resurfaces.
The repression of her emotions and desires, fractures her in two, turning her present into a door towards a violent past; an otherness that gradually contaminates the theater piece that she is about to premiere. Anna feels she is going mad, there is a Creature growing within her.

Written and directed by María Silvia Esteve
Produced by Rodrigo Díaz
VFX by Dano Marello
Argentina-Chile
Running time: 90'
2026

• Winner Focus COPRO' 2022 - Marché du Film, Cannes
• TorinoFilmLab EXTENDED - Veneto Writing Lab 2022

SELECTIONS

"L'Atelier cinéma", CNC Cannes Coproduction Workshop 2024
TRAME Residency - Cité Internationale des Arts 2023
TorinoFilmLab Extended - VENETO WRITING LAB 2022
Focus COPRO’ - Marché du Film Cannes 2022

LLEGANDO AL CIELO

Sol tosses a small stone, and the hopscotch game begins. She plays with three friends under the condition that when she reaches the CIELO square she will have to decide on one of them. However, when she jumps into the square eight, Sol turns around and begins to run, thus starting an innocent persecution that will lead to the three men in her life trying to reach her love, with all its innocence, wildness, and violence.

Directed by María Silvia Esteve
Written by María Silvia Esteve and Andrea Cabrera
Production Andrea Fuentes, Ezequiel Rossi, and Ana Julia Lede
Cinematography by María Silvia Esteve
Camera by Eric Boslok, Alan Saavedra Savignano
Editing by María Silvia Esteve
Argentina
Running time: 14'
2010

• AEC Award to the Best Cinematography -
Semana de Cine Experimental de Madrid

SELECTIONS

Semana de Cine Experimental de Madrid - 2010.
Festival de Olavarría - 2010.
5º Festival de Cortometrajes Dunas - 2010.
Athens Video Art Festival - 2010.
Waterpieces, Contemporary Arts and Video Festival - 2010.
CINESQUEMANOVO, Festival de Cine de Porto Alegre - 2011.