The portrait of a woman at odds with her role as a mother and its demands. Impressively edited by her now adult daughter from material accumulated over more than thirty years.
Over many years, the director’s father filmed his family life almost obsessively. His daughter’s birth, his son’s first steps, and always Valérie, the young mother. An impressive fund of material which their now grown-up daughter Faustine appropriates to tell quite a different story: that of a woman who sees her role as a mother and its demands take away her freedom step by step.
In the here and now, the director observes her parents in the big empty house in the country: her hyperactive father who is constantly tinkering with something, and her chain-smoking mother who sits at the kitchen table and whose sharp mind can only be surmised from her eyes. What happened? What happened to the energetic and independent young make-up artist? The one who admires witches and wants to take a trip around the world. The one who could easily earn her own living but still gives up her job. “The gaze is important”, the now 60-year-old Valérie tells her daughter once while applying make-up. Yes, the gaze is important. And with her film, director Faustine Cros counters the gaze directed at her mother over all those years with a new narrative.
Marie Kloos
Credits
Director
Faustine Cros
Cinematographer
Faustine Cros, Jean-Louis Cros
Editor
Faustine Cros, Cédric Zoenen
Producer
Julie Freres, Camille Laemlé
Co-Producer
Sound Image Culture, Centre de l'Audiovisuel à Bruxelles (CBA), RTBF
Sound
Faustine Cros
Score
Ferdinand Cros
World Sales
Anna Berthollet
Winner of:
Prize of the Interreligious Jury,
Silver Dove (International Competition)