Eu Deveria Estar Feliz

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.

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.

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.

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

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

(M)Other

November 2019 •German

Being mother is the most natural thing in the world. Or so it seems. Yet the demands on women with children have rarely been as overloaded and contradictory as they are in today’s Western world. Promises of happiness are often followed by disadvantages, excessive demands and feelings of guilt. The mother has become an artificially glorified ideal, which nevertheless is often legitimized by the „nature of the woman“. We live in a time when three people could claim to be the same child’s mother: egg donors give their genes to beget children, surrogate mothers deliver babies which they give away immediately after birth, and men raise children by themselves – without a woman at their side. Hence the question arises: What makes a human being a real mother?

Mulher Não Tem Graça

November 2024 •Portuguese

De Peito Aberto

July 2018 •Portuguese

Mater Amatisima

October 2017 •Spanish

Given the fetishizing and normalizing character that is given to motherhood in patriarchy in order to perpetuate the social order, do we truly choose to be mothers? Why is care, of fundamental vital labor, presupposed as an especially appropriate task for women?

Pink Bullet

July 2023 •Spanish

Two drag queens living in a place where homophobia and transphobia are common open their hearts to the world, revealing the human being behind the makeup and wigs. They share the reality of drag as an art form and what it means to move forward as part of the LGBTTTI+ community in a Latin American context.

Maternité : le grand saut

November 2022 •French

Dante y Soledad

May 2024 •Spanish

When her first daughter is born, Inés, an independent and successful woman, discovers that her previous life is slipping away from her without it being clear if what awaits her in the future is better. Dante and Soledad, a couple of saltwater fish, will be both mirrors and witnesses of her transformation. It is through her reflection that Inés will realize what she must do to face her new 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.

Mother, May I?

July 2023 •English

Emmett enters into a nightmarish game of therapy with his wife Anya, who has inexplicably taken on the persona of his estranged and recently-deceased mother.

The Lullaby

January 2018 •English

Returning to her home town, overwhelmed by the birth of her firstborn, nineteen-year-old Chloe van Heerden tries to come to terms with motherhood. Despite the support from her own mother, Chloe struggles with the demands of caring for a newborn child. The incessant crying of her baby, the growing sense of guilt and paranoia send her into a dark depression. With a heightened urge to protect her son, she sees danger everywhere.

Hazel

October 2021 •English

Libby is dealing with an intense postpartum depression while caring for her baby daughter, Hazel. She looks to her partner, Pat, for understanding but his inability to embrace the issue or even acknowledge her mental state sends Libby deeper into a psychosis that threatens harm on the entire family.

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.”

The Stranger in Me

October 2008 •German

A young couple in love: Rebecca (32) and her boyfriend Julian (34) are expecting their first child and are full of pleasant expectation. As Rebecca gives birth to a healthy boy their luck seems to be perfect. But instead of the unconditional motherly love she was expecting she is thrown into an emotional turmoil. Helplessness and desperation reign and her own baby is a stranger to her. With every day that passes her inability to meet the demands of motherhood become more and more apparent. Unable to admit this to anyone, not even Julian, she falls into a deep darkness - to the point that she realises she is becoming a threat to her child. Now only unconditional love can bring her back on track…