Maria Martínez Bayona talks THE END OF IT (Cannes 2026) – Jennifer Green interviews

For a young Spanish director to make her first feature film in English with a Euros 8 million ($9.4m) budget—more than double the Spanish average—and with internationally renowned actors like Rebecca Hall, Noomi Rapace, Gael García Bernal and Beanie Feldstein is unusual. For her film to be invited to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival is even more out of the ordinary.

But that’s precisely what Maria Martínez Bayona has achieved with her debut feature, The End of It, invited to screen in Cannes Première this month. The Catalan screenwriter and director, who is based in London, has garnered attention with her short films Mia, Wake and Such Small Hands. Now, she is premiering her first feature-length film on the biggest international stage.

AWFJ spoke by Zoom with Martínez Bayona (no relation to fellow Catalan director J.A. Bayona) prior to the festival, which runs May 12-23. Interview edited for length and clarity.

Jennifer Green: Tell me a little about you and your background.

Maria Martínez Bayona: I studied Audiovisual Communication in Barcelona. Then, when I finished, I was making short films, so I applied for the La Caixa scholarship and went to study in London, at the National Film and Television School. And I was there doing a Master’s in Directing Fiction. Then I decided, I’m staying here in London because there’s something here that stimulates me creatively. So, I was writing a lot, I made some short films, and it was a process of planting things along the way and letting them take shape.

JG: How would you describe The End of It?

MMB: It’s a mix of sci-fi, family drama and dark comedy. It’s very hybrid in genre and tone. This is a story that’s set in a context where we’ve reached a point where people don’t have to age. Medical advances mean we can constantly repair our bodies. And in this context, the protagonist, Claire [Hall], is a person who has a very privileged life, a very quiet, very monotonous life, and she feels there’s nothing stimulating. She feels there’s something there that’s missing, that she’s empty inside.

So, at her birthday party, where she turns 250, it’s a moment where she suddenly sees clearly, she has an almost physical revelation of saying: “I don’t want to go on here, I want to stop, I want to die.” And this announcement, obviously, has an impact; everyone is very shocked. And it also has an impact on her family, on her husband [García Bernal], her daughter [Rapace]. There are a number of conflicts that arise from that announcement, but it also reconnects her a bit with her past as an artist and with her identity as an artist that she had somewhat left behind. And as this date of death approaches, she has to confront what does this need to reconnect as an artist mean, these conflicts with her family, and what dying really means.

JG: The film has a budget of 8 million Euros, which is high for a European film, especially a Spanish film. Tell me about the financing process, finding the actors and how you pulled it all together.

MMB: Well, since we had been developing with the BBC—the BBC has always been with us on this journey—so when we finished the script, it ended up in the hands of an American agent who had seen some of my short films, and he made some moves and ended up with two incredible casting directors, Ellen Chenoweth and Susanne Scheel. They were the ones we started working with on the casting. It was an incredible process and the film took shape, it became something else… When you have such a talented cast, it helps with financing, or at least helps secure financing. It’s a film that had to be financed with UK funding. There’s an American part, through MediaPro, and Spain and Norway.

JG: Were you at all scared to take on such an ambitious project for your first feature?

MMB: I’m not sure how to answer that question. Scared, no. It’s what has emanated from me… I think everyone has an internal temperature, and my internal temperature leans towards these kinds of stories.

JG: Would you define this film more as British cinema, Spanish cinema, American cinema?

MMB: I think it’s a bit of everything, in the same way that my identity now is a bit of everything because I’ve been living in London for many years, and I’m from Reus [in Catalonia]. I think identity is more than geographical, it’s more emotional, right? It’s built from experiences. And I think the film is a bit like that too. It’s a film that also takes place in a context that isn’t tied to one specific local element. It’s a film that talks about things that are quite timeless, quite universal. So, I think it’s a pretty fluid and open identity in that sense.

JG: Are there parallels between the protagonist and you?

MMG: I mean, like any character in the story, I think there are always pieces of me, obviously. But there are also, I think the protagonists are also people I know, people I’ve met through other people, artists. It was also a process of studying many artists, women, their work, their personalities. I think it’s a bit of a mix of everything.

JG: Why did you ultimately decide to film in Spain?

MMG: Well, first of all because we needed sun… Also, Tenerife [in Spain’s Canary Islands] is a place that’s a bit timeless, right? It’s always in a perpetual summer, so it already fit thematically to film in Spain, and filming in Tenerife even more so. Obviously, being Spanish, you have tax advantages, but initially it was already like: I think this has to be filmed with sun.

JG: In general, do you think that to put together a project of this size as a Spanish director, you need that international support, those international financing partners?

MMB: I think that to do a project like this, yes… I think you have to join forces and find people who also understand what kind of project it is, what kind of tone it is, what kind of genre it is. You have to find the people who are going to understand the project and who are going to be there.

JG: Do you have a favorite director?

MMB: I have many, actually. Let’s see, for Spanish directors, I really like Buñuel, I think he’s one of my favorites. But I also love Bergman, I love Paul Thomas Anderson, Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer, I really like all these directors. I also like Alice Rohrwacher. I love what she does, she has a very special sensibility.

JG: I know it’s a bit early, but I read on your website that you have another project in the works. Can you talk about it yet?

MMB: I do have a couple of projects righ now, but it’s kind of early to talk about them. One is more in the UK. I also have a project here in Catalonia with the same production company, Fasten Films. They’re still taking shape, and that’s where they are. I also want to kind of stop for a moment—I mean, live in the moment and digest all of this—and then recover internally and then move on. But yes, there are projects on the horizon.

JG: Do you see your career continuing along these lines of bigger, more international projects?

MMB: I don’t know. I mean, yes and no. It depends. I’m more driven by the kind of stories that motivate and appeal to me, and I think that’s how the energy gathers around them. It’s more circumstantial for me whether it’s big or small. That sounds a bit abstract, because obviously you have to move a lot of energy if it’s big. But I think I’m more guided by where I am in my life, what interests me, and what project fits that.