Synopsis
Nava Mamă (EN: Mothership) is an essay film about the different forms of abuse experienced by Mara (b. 1991), a girl who grew up in south-eastern Romania.
The film consists of three video letters created by Mara for one of her online friends that she’s never met in person. In the first letter, through postcard-like images, she uses her voice to guide the viewer around the places in her hometown that she still has vivid memories of. The second letter addresses Mara’s childhood spent in the secluded village of her maternal grandparents, in the company of her fearful grandmother and abusive grandfather. The third letter, by far the most complex, invites us into the confusing and conflicting microcosm of her teenage years.
What begins as a playful description of the geography of a place slowly descends into a visceral recollection of traumatic events. By blending the sense of intimacy of the epistolar form, austere urbex images, and raw Direct Cinema footage, Mara shares these disquieting episodes with us.
The film consists of three video letters created by Mara for one of her online friends that she’s never met in person. In the first letter, through postcard-like images, she uses her voice to guide the viewer around the places in her hometown that she still has vivid memories of. The second letter addresses Mara’s childhood spent in the secluded village of her maternal grandparents, in the company of her fearful grandmother and abusive grandfather. The third letter, by far the most complex, invites us into the confusing and conflicting microcosm of her teenage years.
What begins as a playful description of the geography of a place slowly descends into a visceral recollection of traumatic events. By blending the sense of intimacy of the epistolar form, austere urbex images, and raw Direct Cinema footage, Mara shares these disquieting episodes with us.
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