Mother/Country 2003
Distributed by Frameline, 145 Ninth St., Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94103; 415-703-8650
Produced by Tina Gharavi
Directed by Tina Gharavi
VHS, color, 24 min.
Sr. High - Adult
Biography, Middle Eastern Studies, Women's Studies
Date Entered: 02/11/2005
Reviewed by Veronica Maher, Roger Williams University, Bristol, Rhode IslandA young girl is sent from her mother and her mother country, Iran. Returning twenty years later Gharavi wants to know why her mother gave her up at age six to go live with her father. She attempts to use her filmmaking talents to evoke the truth, but it is not a truth she necessarily can accept. Mum is happy to see her grown daughter, asserts her love for her but offers no additional reasons other than it was the best thing to do at the time. What the viewer is missing, in order to feel involved, is information about their lives to this point. Who was Dad? What has Mum been doing? It is unclear whether she spent this time in England or the United States? Was her life happy or miserable? What ever became of the film she was making? This story, as a documentary, is disappointing. It is incomplete. In English and Farsi with English subtitles.