Still: Treat Her Like a Lady - Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito

A homeless single mother struggling to cope but being treated with hostility by the social services… The storyline of Dutch-Chilean director Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito’s second feature Treat Her Like A Lady** (premiering in IFFR’s Limelight section) sounds like something out of a very downbeat Ken Loach movie.

In fact, the film is shot in eye-popping colour, and is full of energy and humour. Rather than basking in misery, it deals with the plight of its heroine, Sandra (played by Nienke Plas) as if she is a character in a very flamboyant telenovela or a soap opera. 

The starting point was the director’s observation of gentrification in Amsterdam. She had grown up in a working class part of the city, in circumstances similar to those of Sandra’s kids. In recent years, though, she has witnessed the disappearance of traditional working-class communities who can no longer afford to live in the city.

At the same time, social services have increasingly been targeting working-class communities, sometimes wrongfully accusing families of benefits fraud. 

“I really wanted to tell the story of my Amsterdam. For me, it was very important to show this world in a vibrant way,” Valdebenito explains. “It’s inspired by my mother. She is a hard-working woman and sometimes had cleaning jobs on the side to make ends meet, and so I went with her to the cleaning jobs, diving into the rich world of others through their records and books... It had to be a colourful film because that is exactly how I lived it. This vitality, that was crucial for me because we often see these themes portrayed in a very sad, grey way.”

In the film, Sandra somehow convinces her kids that homelessness is a kind of adventure holiday.

Since she started writing the screenplay eight years ago, Valdebenito has become a mother herself. Sandra now has some of her own character traits, as well as those of other friends who’ve lived in similarly difficult circumstances. 

The director (who lives in Marseilles) was determined to show the mother’s “resilience,” not to portray her as a victim. Sandra is a fiercely independent heroine who refuses to be patronised or bullied by the authorities, even when she is at her lowest ebb. That’s part of the reason for casting the effervescent comedian, actress and influencer Plas in the role.

“It really mattered to me to have someone with the accent of Amsterdam, somebody who knew this world. Nienke knew this world. She grew up in Purmerend (in the west of the country), but she has this slang which is very natural. And she has this energy as well that really fits with the character, responding to life with humour in difficult moments!”

Shooting took place in high summer, during a heatwave - and so there is plenty of ice cream and sunshine.

Valdebenito (who is an actor as well as a director) cites films like the Jacques Demy musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and West Side Story as influences on her stylised approach in terms of the use of colour. She describes the film as “elevated soap opera but with craft… social themes, but covered with cotton candy.” The larger than life characters are partly inspired by Italian director Matteo Garrone’s movies, while the combination of comedy and social comment owes a small debt to Vittorio de Sica comedy, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, in which Sophia Loren plays a permanently pregnant mum (if she’s expecting a baby, she cannot be sent to prison for illegally selling cigarettes).

There are also some elaborate set-pieces. For example, early on, a truck drops hundreds of loaves of bread on a busy road. Sandra’s partner jumps down from the apartment which overlooks the highway. Avoiding the traffic, he salvages the loaves. It’s food for the family - and they can sell the leftovers. 

The film was made through Frans van Gestel’s Topkapi Films, who also produced the director’s debut feature, Out Of Love. Valdebenito’s collaboration with van Gestel stretches back to film school days when he was involved in her graduation short. “I remember he said come and see me when you’re developing your first film - and that’s what I did!”

Treat Her Like A Lady is written and directed by Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito and produced by Topkapi Films (NL) in co-production with Menuetto Film (BE). The Benelux distribution of Treat Her Like A Lady is handled by Cinéart. The theatrical release in The Netherlands is set for May 28.

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*film supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Netherlands Production Incentive