Laura Obradors is making her feature directorial debut with The Woodworm (El Corquim), a film about a teenage girl’s search for her own identity in the shadow of her father, a successful artist in creative crisis. The project came through Madrid’s ECAM Incubator.
The story centers on Clara, a 17-year-old whose hunger to be noticed and cherished is complicated by a growing impulse to escape the demands placed upon her. Ricard, her father, functions as both a parent and a painter, and his occupation adds another layer to the tale. Obradors explained to Variety that “Clara always seems to crave something from the outside world: to be seen, accepted, acknowledged, adored. 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.”
Clara’s Family Structure
The project came from Obradors’ own interest in how a daughter can feel both close and distant toward her father at the same time. She also explained that her father-daughter relationship offered her one of her first looks at the wider masculine world, complete with its own rules and demands.
“Somewhere between these two polarities is a world that inspired me to make this film — an attitude, an action, where preservation and destruction coexist.”
Clara grows up within a family structure shaped by power, submission and male pleasure, with few alternative points of reference. Questioning what she has learned about femininity and intimacy means confronting the guilt attached to that questioning. Her father’s profession brings another layer to those dynamics: as both a parent and a painter, he has the power to shape a person’s understanding of the world and the images through which that world is represented.
The Artist’s Authority
Obradors noted that the film draws on a familiar cultural tendency. “For a long time, we’ve seen the artist as a kind of genius and almost a divine figure,” she said. “That idea can sometimes make us forget that artists are also responsible for what they create and for the power they have.”
As producer Sergio Adrià notes, the film concerns Clara, and the building of female identity within a hostile, male-dominated world — not Ricard’s inner demons or impulses.
Adrià said “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,” and the words carry the weight of a man who has spent his life studying how food comes together.
The film’s visual approach is shaped by that view. Adrià describes a world seen through the eyes of a young person, where people, places and situations can feel idealized, magical or unsettling. The cruelty unfolding among the characters will sit alongside the beauty of the landscape.
Development and the Team Behind It
The film was shaped by two bodies working together: Cine Qua Non Lab of Madrid’s ECAM Incubator, and it has received development support from the Catalan Institute for Cultural Enterprises. It has also received selections for Cannes Focus COPRO’ and ECAM Forum’s Films to Come. The film was on its fourth script draft at the time of the interview, following participation in Mexico’, along with ECAM’s La Incubadora.
Adrià’s Espurna Films, founded in 2023, backs the production. Sandra Hermida co-produces, and she guided the project through La Incubadora alongside director Carlos Marqués-Marcet, who wrote the screenplay and took a new director Goya. His previous film was “10,000 km.”, which Obradors directed. He also directed the shorts “Si amanece, nos vamos” and “Las chicas,” the second of which was produced by Espurna.
The Title’s Meaning
The title The Woodworm carries meaning for the film’s central stakes. An insect weakening a structure from within, difficult to detect: that is Clara’s domestic world.
“It’s a space of repression, silent and invisible, where suffering, fear, and guilt live,” she said. “Clara feels like an intruder, especially when she comes into conflict with the different images of herself that have been constructed around her.”
Obradors has built distance from the material’s origins through the development process, so that reality serves the film rather than the film serving reality.
The group is looking for co-producers, distributors and sales agents throughout Spain, France, Portugal and Belgium. They are present at San Sebastián and will also be at Les Arcs Industry Village.
A Fresh Take on the Father-Daughter Dynamic
The daughter’s fight to define herself is the core of The Woodworm, a tale given purpose here. A director’s personal interest, an incubator’s support and a producer’s commitment to Catalan cinema with international reach. The result is a project that is not about the father’s crisis are both present within the story, but the film centers on her battle to make her own identity within it.
The movie is still being worked on, but it already has a strong point of view, a committed team behind it, and a name that makes clear exactly what the story is about.
Source material: “ECAM Incubator Title ‘The Woodworm’ Explores Female Identity in the Shadow of an Artist Father,” Variety.
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