A story of a mother and her son and a race against a tortoise where you always lose.
Social & External
Himself
Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.
The film is about the director’s mother, the movie actress Nina Antonova. Now she is 80. She has had hundreds of roles – big and small. It is a personal story about an honest and sad life, about self-sacrifice and freedom. Real fame as an actress came to her only once in her life. It was the leading role in the first Soviet colour TV series Varka’s Land. That was 45 years ago…
The filmmaker's mother describes stories of his lustful youth over the phone, causing them to reflect on his current love life at the age of 30.
Seven strangers are interviewed to talk about the relationship they have with their mother.
Australian filmmaker Sophia Turkiewicz investigates why her Polish mother abandoned her and uncovers the truth behind her mother's wartime escape from a Siberian gulag, leaving Sophia to confront her own capacity for forgiveness.
A film essay that intertwines the director's gaze with that of her late mother. Beyond exploring mourning and absence as exclusively painful experiences, the film pays tribute to her mother through memories embodied by places and objects that evidence the traces of her existence. The filmmaker asks herself: What does she owe her mother for who she is and how she films? To what extent does her film belong to her?
"Until one day... when the first shot was fired, everyone had to leave their homes." – In 1975, Ema was awaiting the arrival of her first child, in Angola. However, her tranquility was abruptly interrupted by a force that pulled her from her comfort and changed her life forever.
Documentary filmmaker Rebecka Rasmusson becomes pregnant with the man she believes to love, when it turns out that he also has another woman. One evening in front of the TV, Rebecka sees an interview with the 90 year old premier queen Alice Timander who says she never felt loved. Rebecka decides to look her up and together insinuates itself a drama about love, betrayal, being a mother, daughter, and as a woman wearing a dream about making a career.
Artistic director of the National Theater Eric de Vroedt writes and directs a performance about his own mother Winnie, who passed away in 2020. This piece, titled The Century of My Mother, is a family story about the migration from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. It is De Vroedt's way of examining the relationship with his mother and not having to say goodbye to her yet: 'I can let her live on stage, but when the curtain falls, when the play is completely finished, then she is really dead'.
"My mother is spending all her time with her dying father. I’m spending all my time filming her. As the end is getting closer, my mother and I start doing the filming more and more together. It becomes our way of dealing with the time we have left." —Marius Dybwad Brandrud
Tatjana in Motherland is a partly animated documentary essay about Slovenia and its men. It is a “documentary-tale” of how Slovenian society has been disintegrating in an invisible way. The story will unveil a Slovenian Oedipus archetype of the possessive martyr mother type and her relationship with her son, in which she through emotional manipulation, by constantly creating feelings of guilt, burdens her son to such a degree, that he remains dependent on her for the rest of his life. In order to put this relationship to its best use, all Slovenian governing structures have elevated mother figure on the level of a saint and have assigned to it the cultish role. The result of the Slovenian maternal cult is a typical Slovene male, who is pathologically obsessed with his mother.
‘Over the course of several summer days in Split I talked to my mom about everything. I mean, really everything.’
What if you love your child, but are unhappy in your role as a mother? Spijtmoeders is a documentary film about mothers who, if they could make the choice again, would rather not be mothers. Three women talk about their struggles with motherhood, the shame and guilt they feel, and the high expectations society places on them. The fear of judgment from others is great: what if people think that they are not a good mother, that they do not take good care of their child? What if they think they don't love their child? The mothers are represented by hyper-realistic dolls, but their voices are real.
Terry Wilson is a 70-year-old lifelong resident of Meadowvale Village, Ontario's first heritage district. As development looms and begins to destroy Terry's favourite place in the world, he recreates pieces of history in his backyard, crafting an oasis where it feels like nothing has changed. A beautiful tribute to his childhood, his mother, and his town, Terry passionately fights to preserve history in a world that's too anxious for change.
Mother compiles clips of mother figures from classic Hollywood cinema and television dramas. The figures range from the Virgin Mary and Mother Courage, to characters from Maude (1972–78), Aliens (1986), Imitation of Life (1959), and American Gangster (2007). The characters play out scenes of care, loss, emotional manipulation, abandonment, and grief. The intense relationships between mothers and daughters are especially prominent.
François Delisle draws an intimate portrait of his mother in a nursing home. A chronicle of the daily life and medical care of a woman approaching the end, treated with love, respect and dignity.
Two nine-year-old girls report a flasher to the police even though they never saw him. Three filmmakers meet the only residents of a deserted village - an elderly brother and sister who have not spoken to each other in 16 years. Retired cleaning women are found raped and strangled in a small town. The fiction slowly turns into a documentary.
