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DOSSIER

No. 5 (2026)

Forms of Silence and Maternity in Las motitos (Inés Barrionuevo and Gabriela Vidal, 2020)

DOI
https://doi.org/10.58180/lci.5.2026.83
Submitted
May 14, 2026
Published
2026-09-03

Abstract

The following paper proposes an aesthetic and narrative analysis of the film Las motitos (Barrionuevo & Vidal, 2020) in order to delineate the filmic modalities that the imbrication between feminisms and the State takes based on the debate on abortion. The film explores the political dispute over abortion through the link between the central characters and public institutions, specifically the health system and the police forces. The article states that the disqualification at the political level of the Law on Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy (IVE) is evidenced through the avoidance of abortion as a choice. In the film, abortion circulates ominously in the images, sounds and dialogues of the characters. In terms of staging, it is the off-screen that is the space explored to unveil the decision to have an abortion made by Juliana (Carla Gusolfino). The erosion of the rule of law necessitates the transgression of norms as a vital strategy for self-preservation, while institutional abandonment crystallizes into the pervasive fear exhibited by the protagonist throughout the film. To examine this intersection with the political sphere, it is imperative to foster a theoretical dialogue between feminist film theory and the conceptual frameworks of Jacques Rancière (1996) and Florencia Angilletta (2021). This analysis recovers the notion of a political rationality defined by disagreement, contextualizing it within the Argentine socio-political landscape and exploring the formal aesthetics through which the demand for an alternative 'distribution of the sensible' is articulated.

References

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