HAGUE MOTHERS
FISCALLY SPONSORED BY bREAKING THROUGH THE LENS,
a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (EIN: 88-3840078)
making all donations tax-deductible for u.s. citizens.
Hague Mothers, A documentary feature directed by Julliana Soares
HOVER OVER PHOTOS FOR TEAM BIOS AND PROJECT DESCRIPTION
JULLIANA SOARES | Director (she/her)
Julliana Soares is a Brazilian director, creative producer, and screenwriter with over 15 years of experience in fiction features and TV drama, collaborating with directors including Karim Aïnouz, Laís Bodanzky, and Anna Muylaert. An original series of her creation premieres on HBO Max in 2026. She holds a degree in Radio & TV and a specialization in Screenwriting for Film and TV, and is the founder of Destemida Filmes (2024). HAGUE MOTHERS is her directorial debut a film she spent five years building from the inside, after learning about the 1980 Hague Convention through a mother in her prenatal care group in 2021. She brings to the project fifteen years of narrative craft and the conviction that this story cannot be entrusted to a third voice.
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Project Type: Documentary Feature
Status: Late Development. Production scheduled for Q2 2027.
Production Countries: Brazil, Portugal, Uruguay
Production Company: Destemida Filmes
Language: English
Director: Julliana Soares
Co-Producers: Elisa Bogalheiro, María Zanocchi, Clara Charlo
Producer: Aline Mazzarella
Logline: A feature documentary exposing how the 1980 Hague Convention designed to protect children from abduction is systematically used to punish foreign mothers who fled domestic violence, trapping hundreds of women worldwide inside a legal machinery that treats protection as a crime.
ELISA BOGALHEIRO | Co-Producer, Maria Zimbro | Portugal (she/her)
Elisa Bogalheiro is a creative producer and founder of the Portuguese production company Maria Zimbro. She works across fiction and documentary, with a career rooted in author-driven cinema and international collaboration. Her credits include À Procura da Estrela (Porto/Post/Doc, Gijón IFF), the feminist historical drama Maria, a Rainha Louca (Portugal–Brazil, post-production), Insólita Gente Translucida, and Waiting for Dalí (Tallinn Black Nights). On HAGUE MOTHERS, she leads the Portuguese co-production and international strategy.
MARIA ZANOCCHI | Co-Producer, Los Besos Contenidos | Uruguay (she/her)
María Zanocchi is an Uruguayan producer active since 2000 and co-founder of Los Besos Contenidos. Her credits include Clemente (2018), the HBO series Tu casa es mi casa, Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness (2008), Conquest and Senna (Netflix), and Production Director on Santiago Giralt’s Norma (2023). She has a decade of teaching experience at ORT University Uruguay, the Film School of Uruguay, and CLAEH. On HAGUE MOTHERS, she anchors the Uruguayan co-production and Latin American distribution strategy.
CLARA CHARLO | Co-Producer, Los Besos Contenidos | Uruguay (she/her)
Clara Charlo is a graduate of E.N.E.R.C.–I.N.C.A.A. and co-founder of Los Besos Contenidos. She contributed to El Presidente (Amazon Studios) and was Executive Producer for En El Pozo (2019), selected at Sitges and Bifan. She served as General Coordinator of the Industry Section at Ventana Sur, coordinated the Market area at DocMontevideo, and has coordinated the TAL Awards since 2018.
ALINE MAZZARELLA | Producer | Brazil (she/her)
Aline Mazzarella holds a degree in Cinema from UFF and a master’s in Visual Arts from IUAV/Venice. Since 2014, she has been Head of Business Development at Estúdio Giz (Rio de Janeiro). She is producer of Paulistas (Dok Leipzig, 2017) and Sick Sick Sick (Alice Furtado), and co-producer of El alma quiere volar (Diana Montenegro) and Los abismos (Agustina San Martín).
Confirmed funding to date: USD 14,997
Total estimated budget: USD 550,000
BTTL Fundraising Amount: USD 20,000
Fundraising is structured across three co-producing territories: Brazil, Portugal and Uruguay. Two Brazilian tax-incentive lines (PROMAC and Art. 1A ANCINE) are already approved for private sponsor fundraising. Donations through BTTL's fiscal sponsorship will directly support completing the development phase — organizing research, travel within Brazil to interview key authorities, and writing the production script.
Development Trajectory:
• BRAVI.LAB (Brazil, 2024) producing lab by BRAVI (Brasil Audiovisual Independente)
• Cinema do Brasil Mentorship Program (Brazil, 2024) mentorship with producer and curator Marika Kozlovska
• Marché du Film, Festival de Cannes (France, 2025)
• RIO2C (Brazil, 2025)
• DOCSP (Brazil, 2025)
• Ventana Sur (Argentina, 2025) NextFrame/Brazilian Content delegation (SPcine/ICAB)
• SXSW (Austin, 2026) ApexBrasil internationalization delegation
• LatAm Content Meeting × Sunny Side of the Doc Pitch Session (2026) selected in the Investigation & True Crime category
Key advisors and consultants:
• Dr. Janaína Albuquerque International human rights lawyer; Legal Coordinator, Revibra (Brazil)
• Professor Merle Weiner University of Oregon School of Law; leading scholar on the Hague Convention and domestic violence
• Ruth Dineen International Coordinator, FiLiA Hague Mothers (UK)
• Roz Osborne CEO, GlobalARRK (UK)
• Dr. Adrienne Barnett Reader in Law, Brunel University London (UK)
• Yvette Cehtel Lawyer, Women’s Legal Services Australia
• Judge Inês Soares Brazilian Liaison Judge, International Hague Network of Judges
• Judge Marcela Trillini International Hague Network of Judges (Argentina)
• Senator Mara Gabrilli Brazilian Senate; lead, “Hague Mothers” Bill 565/2022
Creative team:
• Thais Colli - Entertainment Law, Clearance & E&O Counsel (CQS/FV Advogados; former HBO Latin America, Amazon Studios)
• Carol Telles - Development Consultant; director of You Are Not a Soldier (HBO Max / Apple TV+)
• Anna Júlia Santos - Director of Photography; Patrulha Maria da Penha (Ventana Sur Docs Award, 2024)
Director’s Statement:
I learned about the 1980 Hague Convention in 2021, through a mother in my prenatal care group. What she shared opened a wound I could not unsee: women violated, blamed, and stripped of the right to raise their own children by a legal system designed, on paper, to protect those same children.
HAGUE MOTHERS is a film built on a refusal to turn women’s pain into spectacle, and to stay silent about a system that harms them, repeatedly, in the name of child protection. Every artistic choice in the film is also an ethical one: we use dramatization, abstract animation, and voice replacement not as stylistic gestures, but because the real women cannot yet safely show their faces. Their ongoing legal proceedings, custody battles, and safety risks make public testimony impossible. This film speaks for them where they cannot speak for themselves.
What I bring to this project is not the lens of a mother directly affected by the Convention I have not lost a child to a repatriation order. That distance is, I believe, also a responsibility. It frees me to carry the story forward publicly. My work is to listen carefully, structure what these women entrust to me, and refuse the neutrality that has allowed this system to go unchallenged for forty-five years.
Success, for me, will not be measured in festival awards alone, but in whether this film returns something real to the women who made it possible: visibility, accountability, and the sense that their experiences have finally been received with the seriousness they deserve.
~ Julliana Soares, Director, Hague Mothers