París, France. The French Film Society usually hands-out its most important awards: the “’Caesar”, a few days before the American “Oscars”. On Friday the 24th of February, the Spanish actress Carmen Maura picked-up the 2012 Cesar Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the movie “Les femmes du sixième étage” which could be translated as ‘the girls on the sixth floor,’ but which will be distributed in Spain as ‘The Girls’.
The film captures the lives of hundreds of Spanish women in the mid-twentieth century who emigrated to France, and particularly to Paris, to work as maids or domestic workers. These women lived for decades in the attics located on the top floors (often the sixth floor) of the houses where they worked. The film includes several scenes shot at the Spanish Catholic mission, entrusted to the Congregation since 1914, and now served by a community of the Province of Santiago in which seven Claretians reside, five from the province, one from the Delegation of Canada, and one from the Province of Colombia-Venezuela.
The community has good memories of the times of when the film was shot, in which some of their members collaborated in advising the selection of the liturgical songs collected for the film, and in helping the Director, Philippe Le Guay, to understand the work of those decades by the Spanish Catholic Mission.
The film has gone through important international competitions, such as those held in Berlin and Los Angeles, in the ‘respectful comedy’ genre, and it raises an interesting reflection on the relationship between cultures and social classes on the subject of migration, the main reason for our presence in European cities like Zurich and Paris.
