Director Laura Obradors is preparing to make her feature film debut with “The Woodworm” (“El Corquím”), a striking drama that explores a teenage girl’s search for personal identity as it clashes directly with the authority of her father, a successful artist undergoing a profound creative crisis. Developed through Madrid’s prominent ECAM Incubator program, the project closely examines the complex power dynamics exercised within a family structure and how artistic prestige can often act as a shield, protecting such environments from outside scrutiny and critical examination.
The film is produced by Sergio Adrià’s Barcelona-based production company Espurna Films, with high-profile industry veteran Sandra Hermida coming on board as co-producer. At the narrative heart of the story is 17-year-old Clara, whose heartfelt desire to be genuinely seen and loved is heavily complicated by a growing, urgent impulse to escape the suffocating expectations and predetermined roles that surround her daily life.
“Clara always seems to crave something from the outside world: to be seen, accepted, acknowledged, adored,” Obradors explained in an interview with Variety. “Pero al mismo tiempo [But at the same time] she has an internal and contradictory impulse that wants to push her to break free from these attachments and become more independent, mature, and free.”
The project draws deep inspiration from the real-life experiences of a close friend of the filmmaker. It originally grew out of Obradors’ acute interest in the deeply conflicting, emotionally tangled feelings that can coexist simultaneously within a daughter’s relationship with her father. For the director, this foundational family dynamic also provides a young woman with her earliest, most formative encounter with the rigid rules, expectations, and structures of a wider masculine world.
“Somewhere between these two polarities is a world that inspired me to make this film — an attitude, an action, where preservation and destruction coexist,” she noted.
Within the narrative, Clara grows up inside a strict family structure shaped fundamentally by power, submission, and male pleasure, leaving her with very few alternative points of reference to guide her development. As she begins to question everything she has been taught about traditional femininity and intimacy, she is forced to confront the heavy burden of guilt systematically attached to that questioning.
Her father Ricard’s profession as a painter adds yet another complex layer to these already fraught dynamics. As both a parent and a creative force, he holds the profound power to shape a person’s understanding of reality and control the very images through which that world is visually represented.
“For a long time, we’ve seen the artist as a kind of genius and almost a divine figure,” Obradors said. “That idea can sometimes make us forget that artists are also responsible for what they create and for the power they have.”
Producer Sergio Adrià, whose impressive credits include acclaimed features like “Upon Entry” and Gerard Oms’ “Away,” was immediately drawn to the project’s deliberate decision to place Clara’s subjective experience and emotional reality at the absolute center of the narrative.
“It’s not a film about how he deals with his inner demons or impulses: it’s all about her, focusing on the construction of female identity in a hostile and male-dominated environment,” Adrià emphasized.
This singular perspective will deeply inform the film’s overall visual approach and aesthetic language. Adrià describes a cinematic world filtered entirely through the intense lens of adolescence, where everyday people, familiar places, and familiar situations can suddenly appear idealized, deeply magical, or profoundly unsettling. In this vision, the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape will sit in stark, uncomfortably close juxtaposition with the quiet cruelty unfolding among the characters behind closed doors.
Espurna Films, which Adrià founded in 2023, is developing “The Woodworm” as part of its core mission and commitment to championing auteur-driven, original-language Catalan cinema with genuine international potential. Obradors is no stranger to the festival circuit or working with Espurna, having previously directed the short films “Si amanece, nos vamos” and “Las chicas,” the latter of which was also produced by Espurna.
At the time of the interviews, “The Woodworm” was actively working through its fourth script draft. This meticulous development trajectory followed the project’s participation in Mexico’s prestigious Cine Qua Non Lab and ECAM’s La Incubadora initiative. Furthermore, the film has successfully secured crucial early development support from the Catalan Institute for Cultural Enterprises. Its impressive run through the industry circuit has also included valuable selections for the Cannes Focus COPRO’ platform and the ECAM Forum’s Films to Come showcase, both of which have significantly helped broaden its reach among international financiers and partners.
Reflecting on the extensive development process, Obradors noted that the journey has allowed her to gain necessary artistic distance from the material’s deeply personal origins. It has enabled her team to “put reality at the service of the film rather than the other way around.”
Sandra Hermida, whose formidable producing credentials feature major international successes such as “Society of the Snow,” “A Monster Calls,” and “The Impossible,” closely mentored the project through La Incubadora. She worked alongside acclaimed director and screenwriter Carlos Marqués-Marcet, who previously won the Goya Award for best new director for his work on the critically praised romantic drama “10,000 km.”
Armed with this strong creative backing, the production team is actively seeking strategic co-producers, trusted distributors, and experienced sales agents across Spain, France, Portugal, and Belgium. The team has maintained a visible presence at key industry events, having recently attended the San Sebastián Festival while also preparing for meetings at the upcoming Les Arcs Industry Village.
For Obradors, the film’s evocative title offers a direct thematic pathway into Clara’s claustrophobic domestic world, acting as a metaphor for an insect that slowly weakens a physical structure from deep within while remaining remarkably difficult to detect from the outside.
“It’s a space of repression, silent and invisible, where suffering, fear, and guilt live,” she concluded. “Clara feels like an intruder, especially when she comes into conflict with the different images of herself that have been constructed around her.”
