EXCLUSIVE: Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza, known as Ale, felt enormous pressure to have a baby – from her husband, her mother-in-law, from Mexican society in general. But after three miscarriages she became desperate and from there flowed a strange tale that world burst into national and international headlines.
The story – of a baby gifted or a baby stolen — is told in A Child of My Own (Un Hijo Propio), directed by two-time Oscar nominee Maite Alberdi (The Mole Agent, The Eternal Memory). The Netflix documentary premieres today at the Berlin Film Festival.
We have your first look at the film in the exclusive clip below.
Certain facts in the case are undisputed: in 2008, Ale feigned pregnancy, convincing her husband Arturo, her friends and family that she would give birth the following summer. In June 2009, she went to the Hospital General de México, where she was employed, and left with a newborn girl, tucking the infant into a bag. She and Arturo were later arrested at the Hotel Hollywood in a neighborhood of Mexico City.
Director Maite Alberdi
Courtesy Berlin Film Festival
Alberdi learned of the case years later while working on a different project.
“I was very lucky to meet Alejandra. I was researching a project inside a jail. I met her, I heard her,” the filmmaker tells Deadline. “And when I listened to this amazing, unbelievable story, it was like, I need to make a film of this.”
Armando Espitia as Arturo, Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña as Alejandra in ‘A Child of My Own (Un Hijo Propio).’
Courtesy of Netflix
In news reports, Ale was portrayed as a baby thief. Alberdi explores the tale from Ale’s perspective through the use of dramatizations, with actress Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña portraying Ale, and Armando Espitia as Arturo.
“I usually shoot the present, with observation,” Alberdi says of her work. “And here for me to understand the actual context, I needed to tell that past and that story that happened 13 years before [the project began]. So, it was like, how can I make a documentary introducing that moment and her point of view of that situation? …It’s not fiction for me; it’s more like a recreation of her point of view. It was so organic a way to tell this story because [previously] we were [seeing] only one vision and one version at that point.”
(L to R) Director Maite Alberdi, Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña as Alejandra, Armando Espitia as Arturo in ‘A Child of My Own (Un Hijo Propio).’
Courtesy of Luis Antonio Rojas/Netflix
The Chilean filmmaker spent over three years on the film, shooting the recreations as well as interviews with the principals and researching archive. Alberdi’s approach avoids “judging the main character… It’s completely another invitation [for the audience]. It’s trying to understand the context, to understand the pain, to understand how the social pressure to be a mother in some countries — mostly in Latin America — it’s so heavy in these macho cultures, and how extreme that can be. And this is a good example for that.”
Alberdi continues, “That’s what I love about documentary, that we can discuss the reality from another perspective and from a deep understanding of the reality through time, too. Because in the film, you see 16 years of Alejandra’s life, if we start with the past until today.”
Ale told police her husband knew nothing of her plan. She gained weight to simulate pregnancy and at some stage early on in her purported gestation, she met a young woman who was pregnant and didn’t want to keep the baby. The two expectant mothers – one real and the other pretend — made an informal arrangement for Ale to take the infant immediately after the baby’s birth. Alberdi interviewed the actual mother, who denies to this day there was any such arrangement.
“I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to hear the other voice, to understand the pain of the two sides,” she notes. “And I feel that the film recreates the structure of how I lived this story. First, I heard Alejandra’s point of view, then I moved myself [from] that point of view, listening to the other visions. And I feel that after many years, I can connect with both of them in an understanding of what they both lived through.”
‘A Man On the Inside’
Courtesy of Netflix
Alberdi is the rare filmmaker to enter the Berlinale with distribution for her film already arranged. A Child of My Own continues her relationship with Netflix, the home for her 2024 fictional drama In Her Place. Netflix also adapted her documentary The Mole Agent (El Agente Topo) into the series A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson, which was recently renewed for a third season.
“I have so many good experiences with Netflix, of course, starting with A Man on the Inside and I made my first fiction film, In Her Place, with them,” she says. Regarding A Child of My Own, she comments, “I feel that it’s a gift because it’s a very big film with a mix of big production with actors and with a big crew, and with my way to make documentaries with a small crew. So, it was an ambitious project, but very happy that we can do it with Netflix.”
Alberdi adds, “It’s the best of two worlds in a way. I’m in festivals and I have the connections with the audience and the discussions and all the feedback that you expect for a film, and then the opportunity to be massive in the access to some houses that I would never [have] if you are not with Netflix.”
In the exclusive clip below, actress Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña, as Ale, experiences a baby shower, even though she knows she isn’t pregnant.