Beloved Tropic

“Reflecting on care is inevitably something personal, because in one way or another, we have all been there — or we will be. We will have parents who grow old, or we already do, and at some point in our lives, as children, we too have needed to be cared for. In Latin America, moreover, the question of motherhood permeates everything. To be a mother or not to be one — and if you are not, how often you are seen as an incomplete woman.

Thinking about these tensions led me to imagine these two very different women who accompany each other for a brief moment in time. And yes, of course, it is a film about being a mother and also about being a daughter — about all the possibilities contained within those two roles. It is also undeniable that the role of caregiver has almost always fallen to women, whether because we are thought to be naturally suited to it or because it is imposed upon us. That is why it had to be two women who inhabited the screen in this story.

My films are always about Panama. It’s my way of creating a possible portrait of my country. And Panama is a country of transit, of migrations, of people who arrived and stayed. I myself have a Croatian mother and a Panamanian father.

In Beloved Tropic, Mercedes represents the Panamanian aristocracy, while Ana María is the migrant worker who arrives in vulnerable circumstances and ends up taking on one of the most essential and least recognized jobs: caregiving. Together, they embody that Panamanian complexity, and at the same time reflect who we are as a society.”

– Ana Endara, Director