In the Name of the Girl
In the Name of the Girl is a 2011 Ecuadorian drama directed and written by Tania Hermida. It stars Eva Mayu Mecham Benavides, with cinematography by Armando Salazar and music by Nelson García. The film runs 100 minutes, is in Spanish, and was released on November 7, 2011 in Rome.
The story is set in the summer of 1976 in the Ecuadorian Andes. Manuela, a nine-year-old girl raised with revolutionary ideas and without religious ties, stays with her grandparents on a family farm along with her younger brother Camilo. There is a dispute over her name: her socialist, atheist father named her Manuela, but her Catholic, traditional grandmother wants the family’s first-born name, Dolores, to be passed down. The movie shows the deep clashes between beliefs in the family and society, critiquing Ecuadorian religion and capitalism. Manuela’s meeting with her eccentric uncle, who hides in the hacienda’s library and loves freeing words, helps her see language and names in a new way.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:28 (CET).