Natalia López Gallardo’s feature directorial debut revolves around a missing person case — and the three women whose lives collide because of it. A trailer has arrived for “Robe of Gems,” which is screening in competition at the Berlinale.
The atmospheric spot is light on plot details but heavy with tension and dread. There are numerous veiled references to — and outright warnings of — danger. “She doesn’t know who she’s looking for or what she’s getting into,” we hear. One character is told, “You don’t get how things work here.” Another stresses, “I don’t want any trouble.”
According to Deadline, “Robe of Gems” centers on the soon-to-be-divorced Isabel (Nailea Norvind), who tries to help her housekeeper María (Antonia Olivares) find her missing sister. “Meanwhile, Roberta (Aida Roa), the local police commander, hopes to rescue her son from the criminal underworld, and ends up crossing paths with Isabel and María. Their destinies come together in a world of confusion and abandonment where, despite it all, the human spirit to rebel against misfortune persists,” the source describes.
Gallardo told Women and Hollywood that the idea for the film “came to me during a period of research when I had a few encounters with mothers that have missing children. After the interviews, I drove back home feeling something uncomfortable that I couldn’t describe at that moment. Then I realized it is a kind of guilt. Driving and remembering the stories that I have heard, I felt the impossibility of feeling, at least in part, the pain of the parents with missing children,” she explained. “That feeling was the impulse force that [motivated] me through the process of this film. That feeling made me realize also that I didn’t want to use the tools of cinema to make a social or political statement, but to try to approach the spiritual wound caused by this tragedy.”
Gallardo’s short film “In heaven as it is on Earth” was selected for Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2007. She has edited features including “The Darkness,” “Jauja,” and “Heli.”
No word on a theatrical release for “Robe of Gems” just yet. The Berlinale will run through February 20.
