Rosa is a 45-year-old seamstress working in the wardrobe department of a film production, currently shooting a wedding scene. Besides the pressure of her job, she’s also besieged from all sides by the demands of family members: her widowed dad, Antonio, who insists he’s moving in with her; her divorced brother Armando, who has financial problems; her sister Violeta and her young daughter Lidia who is living with a musician in Manchester and raising twin babies and doing favors for friends and neighbors. If that wasn´t enough, she also has to feed her friend’s cat and water her neighbor’s plants. No wonder she’s having nightmares where she runs and runs to get away from everyone and everything. The problem is that when she wakes up, the reality that surrounds her is even worse. It’s not too long before she decides to break with all her ties and take some “me time”. In doing that, she returns to her childhood home, in the coastal town of Benicàssim, to her family’s disused dressmaking workshop, which inspired her to pick up needle and thread. It’s here she decides to reconnect with her first love, couture, and to announce her wedding. Who is she marrying – everybody wonders? Well, nobody. Rosa is marrying herself.
In Rosa’s Wedding, Spanish director Iciar Bollaín returns to her origins, small stories full of meaning and emotions. The idea to write the script for Rosa’s Wedding came when Bollaín discovered that in some countries people are married alone or in groups. Shortly thereafter, she contacted a woman from Bilbao who organizes group weddings and even holds premarital courses. She introduced the director to women who had married alone and helped cement Rosa’s character. Bollaín immediately joined forces with screenwriter Alicia Luna, with whom she has worked on different occasions throughout her career. “Rosa’s story relates to those people who decide to marry themselves, fight for their own dreams, take control of their own life, and don’t have unrealistic expectations of others,” explained the director at the San Sebastian International Film Festival where she screened the film after winning the Special Jury Prize at the Malaga International Film Festival.
To play Rosa, the Madrid-based director chose one of her favorite actresses, Candela Peña, in what is her third collaboration with the Catalan actress. For Peña, Rosas’s Wedding it’s not a woman’s movie. “We are all Rosa”, says the actress, who insists that “there are times when we have to take control of our life to be able to change and not leave things in the hands of others.” To do that, some people pay a therapist for a year, others, like Rosa, need to do this ceremony to reaffirm that they need to change things in their life. “If you need a dress and a ring, go for it! If you need to take a lover, do it! You have to take responsibility for your own life,” added the actress. Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we love ourselves and realize that we are important (even if it’s only for your dysfunctional family).