The production by Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas, featuring the Canarian actress as Pilar, combines thriller and social drama, using vampirism as a metaphor

Canarian actress Aïda Ballmann took part on Saturday in the special screening of the television miniseries Malnombre at the 59th Catalonia International Fantastic Film Festival in Sitges, which came to a close on Sunday. The series is a production by La caña sisters, directed by Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas, Javier Díaz Ribagorda, Laura Gil, Alberto Evangelio and Zoe Berriatúa, and filmed in Fuerteventura and Madrid in 2025.

The series, which combines thriller and social drama and uses vampirism as a metaphor, consists of six episodes. The screenplay was written by Elena Benet, Fran Navarro, Cristina Sainz Rico, Alberto Evangelio and Jorge Navarro de Lemus, with Eduardo Mangada as director of photography and Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas as editor. The actress, who was born on El Hierro, appears in all six episodes and shares the screen with actors such as Ruth Díaz, Macarena Gómez and Aitor Luna.

Taking part in the production of Malnombre represents the Canarian actress’s “first opportunity to work in the thriller genre and with vampire-related themes, two worlds that have always particularly fascinated me because they allow us to explore the darker sides of humanity,” she points out.
For Ballmann, “art also has a responsibility to address taboo, uncomfortable or unpleasant subjects that are part of our nature. Not necessarily to normalise them, but to understand them, question them, make us uncomfortable and invite us to reflect on who we are, on our morality and on the society we live in,” she comments, referring to the series’ genre.

Ballmann portrays Pilar, “a woman desperately seeking to belong, but who is repeatedly rejected by her surroundings because of her age, an issue that particularly affects women in our society,” she explains. “When we are no longer young and no longer fit certain standards of beauty, it seems that we also cease to be useful, instead of valuing everything that comes with maturity: experience, knowledge and the ability to contribute from a different perspective.”

The journey her character goes through is “an issue that particularly affects me as an actress. We know that, from a certain age onwards, many women disappear from our screens or stop being offered roles with the same frequency and complexity. That is why I believe it is essential to keep telling stories that represent society in all its diversity and make room for women of different ages, body types and experiences. These representations also help shape role models and broaden our understanding of what it means to be a woman.”

“Growing older should not mean disappearing; it should mean having other stories to tell and finding new spaces from which to be heard,” the actress continues. “That is why, for me, Malnombre is also an opportunity to reclaim our place. Not just our right to be present, but also the value of everything we have to contribute through our accumulated experience.”

Ballmann’s appearance at the fantastic film festival marks the third project on her schedule for this year. It follows her role in A una isla de ti, an LGBTQ+ comedy shot in the Canary Islands and directed by Alexis Morante, currently available on HBO, Prime Video and Movistar+, and the futuristic drama The End of It, the debut feature film by María Martínez Bayona, shot in Tenerife and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

In addition, this year Ballmann has played Paloma in the Belgian comedy Children of Silver Street, directed by Tilde Harkamp, and stars alongside Abián Díaz and Maykol Hernández in True Crime, a film by Tenerife-born director Marco Oliva and his production company Easy Shot.
In this dark comedy, the three actors portray an unusual group made up of a woman obsessed with true crime, a hapless security guard and an unglamorous criminal. Their paths cross, turning crime into a story that becomes impossible to distinguish from reality.
The year thus draws to a close with a range of projects that have expanded her international presence while allowing her to continue championing Canarian cinema.