What My Mother Told Me

Directed by Frances-Anne Solomon

Trinidad and Tobago / United Kingdom, 1995 (fiction, 57 minutes, colour, English)

Film Description:
"Exquisitely beautiful and profoundly moving, What My Mother Told Me is a dramatic journey towards self discovery. The story focuses on Jesse, a young woman from England, who goes to Trinidad to bury her father. Reluctantly she agrees to meet her mother, whom she thought had abandoned her when she was a child. Her mother tells her stories, revealing a troubled and violent marriage, and Jesse is forced to face the truth about her past."
-- francesannesolomon.com (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Adjoa Andoh, Leonie Forbes, Frances-Anne Solomon
Produced by:	Frances-Anne Solomon, Eka Nowakowska
Principal Cast:	Adjoa Andoh, Leonie Forbes, Clarence Smith, Nadine Williams
Cinematography:	Mike Spragg
Film Editing:	Chris Ridsdale
Music:	Andre Michael Tanker
Production Company:	Aimimage Productions, Leda Serene Films

(sources)

Notes about What My Mother Told Me

Filmed in Trinidad and in London.

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Quotes about What My Mother Told Me

"Although only 57 minutes long, What My Mother Told Me packs in more emotion, more subtle observation, more raw, real life, than most films two or three times its length. Directed and written by former Toronto resident Frances-Anne Solomon (now based in London), it follows a young Glasgow woman on a journey of discovery to her native Trinidad, where she buries her estranged father and encounters her long-absent mother for the first time since she was 4. During several days together, the two women (Leonie Forbes as the elder, Adjoa Andoh as the younger) cover vast and disturbing tracts of disputed memories. Truly memorable."
-- Globe and Mail (source)

"For Catherine [in What My Mother Told Me], her ability to narrate the events from her past is constantly interrupted by the emotions that seize her during the telling; as such, the process of storytelling is very much one of emotional and psychic upheaval as well as one of eventual, uneasy resolution. The resolution between mother and daughter at the end of the film is hardly clear-cut; a few things are resolved but the intricacies of mother-daughter relations are complicated and the process of healing is a long one. Despite the integration of past events into present lived reality, both women nonetheless need to negotiate how they will now relate to each other in light of what they know about their respective and interconnected history."
-- Carmen Nge (source)

Bibliography for What My Mother Told Me

Brief Sections of Dissertations

Nge, Carmen. "The Return of the 'Native': Visualizing Place and Narrating Homecoming." PhD diss., Brandeis University, 2004. (pp. 7-10)

Web Sites about What My Mother Told Me

"IMDb: What My Mother Told Me." Internet Movie Database, Inc. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114913/reference.