Madres Paralelas: the movie beyond the poster Instagram censored
Madres Paralelas (Parallel Mothers) is the latest film written and directed by the Spaniard Pedro Almodóvar, starring his all-time favourites Penélope Cruz, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, and Rossy de Palma.
Two single women meet in a hospital room where they are both going to give birth. One is middle-aged and doesn’t regret it, while the other is adolescent and scared. The two women form a strong bond with one another as they both confront motherhood. The film will premiere on September 1st as it is the opening film, in competition, of the 78th Venice International Film Festival.
According to Alberto Barbera, Director of the Festival, is “an intense and sensitive portrait of two women as they contend with a pregnancy with unpredictable consequences, women’s solidarity, and sexuality that is experienced in full freedom and without hypocrisy, all against the backdrop of a reflection on the ineluctable need for truth that is to be unwaveringly pursued”.
The impressive poster for the movie features a close-up of a lactating nipple made to look like a tearing eye, capturing tenderly both the joy and the pain of motherhood; the artist behind the poster is Javier Jaén, a Barcelona-born graphic designer who has studied graphic design and fine arts in Barcelona, New York and Budapest, working across editorial illustration, book covers, audiovisual projects, advertising and cultural communication; he has done work for The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, National Geographic and Greenpeace.
View this post on Instagram
Javier Jaén though had the surprising experience of seeing his work being censored by Instagram, that took it down referring to the no-nudity rules of the platform.
“This is probably the first image I saw when I was born,” Jaén said. “A company like Instagram tells me my work is dangerous, that people shouldn’t see it, that it’s pornographic. How many people are they telling that their body is bad, that their body is dangerous?”
Most likely thanks to Almodóvar’s established fame, Instagram realised their mistake and reinstated the post:
“We initially removed several instances of this image for breaking our rules against nudity. We do, however, make exceptions to allow nudity in certain circumstances, which includes when there’s clear artistic context. We’ve therefore restored posts sharing the Almodóvar movie poster to Instagram, and we’re really sorry for any confusion caused”, Instagram said in a statement shared by Jaén.
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