Mother, May I?

Baby Blues

January 2013 •Polish

Natalia is a 17-year-old mom living with her mother and son, Antos. She wanted to have a baby because it was a “cool” thing to do, and because she feels she has someone to love; someone who can love her in return. Everything changes when Natalia’s mother decides to move out, giving Natalia a chance to lead a “normal life.”

Mia

October 2020 •Spanish

Alba, a young woman, lives with her boyfriend in a small apartment. One morning she receives terrible news along with the few month-old baby Mía, who is dropped off in her life. Upon her arrival, Alba experiences a series of insecurities and fears that will cause her into a mental breakdown. After her father is dead, Alba is forced to take care of the baby he left, even though the baby represents imbalance in her life.

The Rye Horn

October 2023 •Galician

Maria is a shellfisherwoman and midwife in a small village in the Illa de Arousa in 1970s Galicia. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee to Portugal.

Waiting Time

November 2023 •Italian

Under the shade of a Magnolia tree, a group of pregnant women gathers weekly. Among them is Teresa, an experienced midwife who listens to them attentively. Sitting in a circle, the women reflect on the impending birth of their children and their own emerging roles as mothers.

Miracle

January 1975 •Czech

This student film by the award-winning Helena Třeštíková bears many of the hallmarks of her later work. Made as a graduation piece when she was at the FAMU Film and TV Academy in Prague, we see the director developing the distinctive observational style of filmmaking that she has used so effectively throughout her career. Over the course of several months, she follows a young pregnant woman as she becomes slowly acquainted with the joys and responsibilities of motherhood.

Mamífera

April 2024 •Catalan

Lola (40) enjoys a happy life until an unforeseen pregnancy throws her plans into disarray. Resistant to motherhood and confronted by societal expectations, Lola and her boyfriend, Bruno, deal with the situation. As Lola confronts her inner fears about the repercussions of not embracing motherhood, she embarks on a quest for answers. Unexpectedly, Bruno reveals his desire to become a father, adding further tension and complexity to Lola's search for clarity about her future amidst pressure to conform to societal norms.

A Happy Event

September 2011 •French

She drove me into a corner, then forced me to go beyond my limits. She made me confront the absolute: love, sacrifice, tenderness, abandonment. She dislocated me, transformed me. Why didn't anyone warn me? Why doesn't anyone ever talk about this?" Un heureux événement, or an intimate view of motherhood, sincere and with no taboos.

Palma

October 2020 •French

Jeanne take her daughter for the week-end in Majorque. While everything goes to rack and ruin, mother’s only concern is to photograph Kiki, the classroom mascot.

Odayaka

December 2012 •Japanese

Saeko and Yukako live together in a small apartment complex in Tokyo. After the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, both live in a state of unease. Saeko, who is in a divorce, is worried that her daughter is exposed to radiation. Yukako is also afraid of radiation and tries to convince her husband to move. The two become friends after Yukako tries to save Saeko after a suicide attempt.

Australia

May 2016 •English

Helena, a woman in her early 40's, is obsessed with getting pregnant. After failing her last try, her neighbors get back from the hospital with their new born baby. Helena breaks in to their house when they´re gone, steals the baby monitor and starts listening to what happens next door.

Motherland

January 2017 •English

The planet’s busiest maternity hospital is located in one of its poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. There, poor women face devastating consequences as their country struggles with reproductive health policy and the politics of conservative Catholic ideologies.

Veil of Silence

February 2016 •French

It is 1968 and Marianne is nineteen years old. She has been sent to a home for young girls, far from her family and friends. Here she meets other girls whose secrets have turned their lives upside down.

The Midwife

March 2017 •French

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

That Mothers Might Live

April 1938 •English

That Mothers Might Live is a 1938 American short drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann. The short is a brief account of Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis and his discovery of the need for cleanliness in 19th-century maternity wards, thereby significantly decreasing maternal mortality, and of his struggle to gain acceptance of his idea. Although Semmelweis ultimately failed in his lifetime, later scientific luminaries advanced his work in spirit like microbiologist Louis Pasteur, who provided a scientific theoretical explanation of Semmelweis' observations by helping develop the germ theory of disease and the British surgeon, Dr. Joseph Lister who revolutionized medicine putting Pasteur's research to practical use. In 1939, at the 11th Academy Awards, the film won an Oscar for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).

A letter to Nikola

October 2021 •Greek

As a letter to her son, the filmmaker testifies her experience as a photographer aboard the Aquarius, a ship that rescued 29,523 people in the Mediterranean between 2016 and 2018.

Na Ponta dos Pés

April 2025 •Portuguese

Matrioska

August 2021 •Spanish

TransParente

November 2022 •Portuguese

By approaching the process of sexual reassignment, the work mixes data and experiences, focusing on family relationships and the nuances of the feminine.

Sur la pointe du cœur

January 2002 •French

"On the Tip of the Heart" - is a documentary on the St Peter's Hospital in Brussels, structured around seven doors from the maternity to the morgue. This is an opportunity for the director to ask the audience a question, namely: what is there in common between a medieval city, human life and a hospital?

Il rischio di vivere

January 1977 •Italian