Aina Clotet Talks Portraying an Older Coming-of-Age in Critics’ Week Title ‘Viva’: ‘We Are Still Missing So Many Stories About Women’

When Spanish actor-turned-director Aina Clotet received a call that her directorial feature debut “Viva” was shortlisted for Cannes‘ prestigious Critics’ Week sidebar, she thought she was dreaming. When the selection confirmation call came a month later, she felt almost “dizzy” with disbelief.

Clotet had already been to Cannes, albeit at a different festival: her first directorial effort, the series “This Is Not Sweden,” played at Canneseries in 2024, won Clotet best performance, and went on to achieve great success. But the film festival still felt like a distant goal to the actor. “Cannes has always been a dream for me as an actress, a dream I thought I may never achieve,” she tells Variety. “With this film, however, I thought I should try. I have an amazing team around me, and they were all big supporters of the film, people who were pushing me to do it even though the chances of getting in were small. When they called us to say we were shortlisted, it was already crazy. It meant they had seen the film and were thinking about it.”

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In the intimate “Viva,” we first meet Clotet’s 40-something Nora during a mammography. Her hair is still growing from chemotherapy, and her face is lit up with the glow of someone who went through something devastating and made it to the other side. But the scan has picked something up, and alarm bells ring once more. Even hungrier for life than before, the scientist throws herself headfirst into a passionate affair and in-depth research that can help combat the ever-escalating effects of climate change. 

Clotet recalls first discovering her vocation as an actress at the early age of 11, when she landed her first-ever role on the TV3 show “Estació d’enllaç.” It was only a decade later, when she embarked on a degree at Barcelona’s renowned Pompeu Fabra, that Clotet realized she also loved to write. “I started writing stories and realized at that point that I might like to direct,” she recalls. “But 20 years ago, it wasn’t that easy to direct as a woman. We had references like Isabel Coixet, but it was still hard. It was only 10 years ago, already in my thirties, that I began seeing directing as a possibility.”

The actor then began to develop projects concurrently with her acting jobs, which alleviated the pressure fellow first-time directors often face. “I wanted to invest a lot of time in developing my stories and truly understanding what I wanted to explore.” Soon after, Clotet met veteran producer Edmon Roch of Ikiru Films. “To me, he was the best producer in Spain,” she says. “When we met, he was the wisest, most knowledgeable person, while being humble at the same time and a really hard worker.” Not long after and still during the COVID-19 pandemic days, the two began working together on “Viva,” 

“He has been the best producer I can ever imagine,” notes Clotet. “He’s been on my side from the very first day, through shooting and post production, always respecting me even when he didn’t agree with me. I’m very grateful to Edmon.”

Roch echoes the praise, calling Clotet a “unique voice” and a “pleasure” to work with. The producer also emphasized how he “loved” the way the director depicts Nora in “a way that you don’t necessarily have to agree with her, but you understand her.” “I thought this was something crucial in making the film real. There’s a lot of truth in the story that is being told, in the relationship with her parents, with other men, with her surroundings… The film is also about what is happening with the climate today, but without having to make it too big a subject. She’s just making sure that these elements are around us.”

During development, Clotet began working on other projects and realized she would also like to produce. That’s how her Funicular Films label came to be. “We stepped into co-production with Edmon, which was very natural and easy. Producing is a very organic thing for me, and now that Funicular has grown, I’d like to be able to make other projects from talent I know and help them in the future,” she adds.

As for “Viva” itself, Clotet says the most important thing for her was to find the right tone. “I am really obsessive about tone. I find that life is a permanent balance of different genres; we are always going from drama, humor, tension, fear… I really like to mix it up because it makes it feel more real and that you are there with the characters.”

The director praises her “very important” collaborator, screenwriter Valentina Viso, who has helped her find just the right tone for her feature debut. “With ‘Viva,’ we wanted to look at the human necessity to talk about feelings and our deepest fears, which include a fear of loneliness and of death. That is what moves the movie. But I wanted the film to have a certain lightness as well. We also wanted to explore this fight we have between our brain and our body, between what we feel is right to do and what our body desires.”

“Talking about cancer was the best way we found to explore our deepest fear,” she adds. “We wanted to start the film with her recent recovery, but also a lingering shadow because she hadn’t yet understood or was able to face the idea of impermanence. Impermanence was one of the first words that came to my mind when I began working on the film. I wanted to talk about how you can’t take life for granted and how things are continuously changing.”

Speaking about portraying a later coming-of-age on screen, Clotet credits her fellow female directors and creatives for helping her realize it was possible to broach such issues on screen. “Women are directing more and more, we are growing and ageing, and are in charge of our own stories. I still want to see more stories about women in their fifties, sixties, seventies… We are still missing so many stories about women. We have so much to say. I am glad to be a part of that change.”