There are movies that entertain and movies that move you inside. Lionesses is the latter. Produced by INFINITO + 1, the documentary shows the healing power of love for those who receive it and for those who give it, scientifically proven.
Its director, Juan Manuel Cotelo, and its protagonist, Majo Gimeno, founder of the association Moms in Action, They came to the interview with something that interviewees do not always bring: the certainty that what they are talking about really matters.
It all starts with a single child
The story starts in 2013, when Majo Gimeno discovers in Valencia an invisible reality: thousands of hospitalized children facing the disease all alone, without family by their side. One baby. One hospital. No one by their side. That's all it took for Majo's life to change direction.
«I saw a child, he took away my peace and I wanted to accompany him because I would come home and see my daughter and I would see that child,» says Majo. «It made me so angry that I was dying to think that he was sleeping alone. That there was no one to do that to him».
There was no strategic plan. There was no grand vision. Just an uncomfortable question that kept her awake at night. «Does this child have no one and now what do I do? Do I go home like I haven't seen him? Or do I do something to keep him company?».
He stayed. She had no idea what was going to happen. And from that gesture - small, foolish, human - Moms in Action was born.
Why they are Lionesses
The title refers to the maternal sense of care that many women (and also men) feel when they discover that in Spain there are thousands of children without families. Because that is exactly what they are: women willing to fight with a common commitment: no child alone. If a mother has so much power... what will an army of mothers not achieve?
Today, more than a decade after Majo Gimeno stayed that night with an unknown baby, Mamás en Acción brings together active volunteers in cities such as Valencia, Barcelona, Mallorca, the Canary Islands and Madrid, with a common commitment: no child alone. The association has already accompanied more than 2,000 children in 54 hospitals in Spain.
A reality that hurts
The numbers are hard to hear. In Spain there are more than 55,000 minors without parents or legal guardians. They are not unaccompanied minors arriving from abroad: they are children of Spanish families whose parents, at some point, tell the State that they cannot take care of them. Or the other way around, children whom the state protects by taking them away from their parents.
«The panorama is like a scary movie, with apologies,» Majo admits bluntly. «I don't like to launch destructive messages, but on this issue we are late and wrong.».
The problem is structural: when parents are found to be not taking good care of their children, the administration assumes guardianship. But the parents are given time to rehabilitate themselves, and in the meantime the child cannot be placed in a family.
«You can have six siblings under the administration's care living in sheltered centers and you can renew your right to rehabilitation with each new birth,» explains Majo. In Madrid alone, more than six thousand children live today in sheltered homes. In Valencia, more than five thousand.
His request to the State is direct: «They should act as parents and not as politicians. The success of a parent is that their children do well. That's all there is to it. And to society, something even simpler: »Let's look around and stand still. That's it.«
The merit that goes unrecognized
Majo Gimeno is one of those people who are a little uncomfortable because they leave no excuses standing. She does not speak from a pedestal of superiority. In fact, she insists that hers has no merit. «What I did has no merit because I never visualized what was going to happen. Never.».
And when someone tells her that she has a special light, she rejects it outright: «I wish. I'm not like that, I'm like you. Don't take me for something I'm not, not at all».
Moms in Action, she reminds us, was born not from a brilliant idea but from a very uncomfortable question. And we all, at some point, have that question waiting for an answer. «We all have a lonely child around. Sometimes it's a parent you have to take home with you and you know it but you don't want to look.».
Open your eyes and look around you: «Don't come to volunteer if you haven't seen your sick grandmother for two months. Do you know that your downstairs neighbor hasn't had a visitor for months? Have you had coffee with her?.
The faith that came later
Majo's story also includes a strong religious identity. Some time after creating Moms in Action, she went through a difficult personal situation, until she came to God. Her conversion did not come from accompanying children in hospitals, but from a suffering that pushed her to the limit.
He said to God: «If you really exist, may I die today because I don't want to go on living. I mean, I can't, I can't do this».
What he found on the other side of that moment, he recounts, was a real presence. «Jesus Christ is risen. I'm telling you, he's very much alive and he's here because he came down to hell to rescue me.» And from there, he says, past suffering made sense: «What was making you suffer was the cross you had to climb to be able to love.».
Cotelo: the director who falls in love with projects
Juan Manuel Cotelo, known for documentaries such as The last peak o Make a mess, He came to Majo in a way that couldn't be more his own. He saw her being interviewed on a TVE set while waiting for him to enter. «As I was getting on the microphone I heard that girl talking there and it was immediate: hey, give me your phone, I need to talk to you.».
Cotelo confesses that in the interview round for this film something was different. «Many times journalists stay on the surface. And how did you do this scene? The film's budget, anecdotes from the shoot. With this film, I'm realizing that the press has grasped the heart of the matter: the urgent need we have to be loved and to love».
What is his next project? Cotelo is clear: he doesn't know. «I'll start thinking about it next Monday. I have many projects to choose from because there are so many wonderful stories to tell.».
Lionesses hits theaters this May 15. Perhaps the hardest thing to do after seeing it is to go home as if nothing had happened.
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