Keeping Mum

“Ever since my son was born, I have been having nightmares about my mother.” Without ceremony and with disarming sincerity, renowned French documentarist Emilie Brisavoine draws us into the universe of her somewhat distinctive family. After launching a charm offensive in Cannes eight years ago with a portrait of her half-sister and her family in Oh La La Pauline!, she now fixes her searching and troubled gaze on a fascinating and destructive element named Meaud: A punk mum who gave her daughter the gift of life and then kept running away from life itself; a spontaneous feminist and a beguiling grandma. A mesmeric, intimate odyssey into the very depths of the soul, and a powerful cinematic cry from a filmmaker seeking traces of withheld emotion. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)