Ninety Winters receives a Special Jury Mention at SXSW

Ninety Winters has received a Special Jury Mention in the Documentary Short competition at SXSW 2025.

A portrait of Marta

The film is a quiet portrait of Marta, ninety, in the front room she has kept unchanged since 1961. The wallpaper, the clock and the chair by the window are all as they were when she moved in. Lena Duarte met her through a neighbour and visited for tea for almost a year before a camera was ever mentioned.

When we did film, it was over a single winter afternoon. Marta talks a little, mostly about the room, and spends a long time doing very little at all. The film lets her.

One lens, no added light

We worked with a crew of four. DOP Mara Vidal shot on one lens throughout and added no light, so the film is lit entirely by the window. As the afternoon goes, the room darkens and the image gets softer and warmer, until the lamp goes on at the end.

“The room sets the pace. Our job was to sit still long enough to notice it.” — Lena Duarte

That decision shaped everything else. Takes are long, cuts are few, and the sound is the clock, the kettle and the street outside.

From Arte Shorts to SXSW

Ninety Winters was produced with Arte Shorts, with Tomás Rey producing and Noa Berg as production manager. Hana Kim edited and graded it, keeping the colour as close as possible to what the room looked like that day.

The jury described it as “patient, generous and completely unsentimental”, which is the nicest thing anyone has said about a film we made.

Thank you, Marta

Most of all, thank you to Marta, who let us into her front room and then mostly ignored us, which was exactly right. She has seen the film twice and says the clock looks better on screen than it does in real life.