Once My Mother 2013
Distributed by Alexander Street Press, 350 7th Ave/Ste 1100, New York, NY 10001
Produced by Rod Freedman
Directed by Sophia Turkiewicz
DVD, color, 73 min.
College - General Adult
Documentaries, Family, Family Relations, History, World War II, Genocide, Poverty, Politics, International Relations, War Crimes
Date Entered: 08/09/2016
Reviewed by Irina Stanishevskaya, University of Alabama at Birmingham LibrariesOnce My Mother is a must-see documentary which offers a heart-touching story of two women: Sophia Turkiewicz, an Australian filmmaker, and her mother Helena Skwarek. Prior to the film, Sophia spent a number of years trying to understand why her mother sent her to the Goodwood Orphanage in Adelaide, Australia at age seven. Although Helena visited her daughter every Sunday in the orphanage and tried to do her best during Sophia’s college time, this seeming act of betrayal negatively influenced Sophia’s emotional and social development, and created psychological conflict within the mother-daughter relationship. Sophia loved her mother and hated her at the same time. She struggled with the consequences of being an orphan with a living mother and an unknown father during her early adolescence and adulthood. That trauma is the driving force behind Sophia’s decision go on a journey to take a detailed look into the life of her uneducated mother, who settled in Adelaide, Australia, after World War II, and was originally from the Oleszow (Oleshiv) village in Poland.
Through her filmed investigation, Sophia discovers that from Helena’s childhood, her life was a series of hardships. Helena never saw her mother—who died in childbirth—and became an orphan by the age of six. From that moment, her life became a series of hellish events for a long period of time, especially during World War II. Many dramatic historical events directed Helena’s decision-making actions in her difficult life and Sophia aims to understand them, including the Goodwood Orphanage decision. It is not my intent to retell their whole story. Rather, interested audiences are urged to follow it through the camera lens and to observe the transition and growth in the mother-daughter relationship during Sophia’s journey.
The documentary not only conveys the parallel stories of a daughter and mother and their real lives, but also powerfully chronicles many historical events of the time through the eyes of Helena who lived through them: the Soviet invasion and occupation of Poland and mass persecution in 1939, deportation of innocent Polish people to Siberian gulags, and the evacuation of Polish refugees by General Anders to Buzuluk, then Tashkent and Krasnovodsk in the Soviet Union, and then through Iran to Palestine, as well as to their settlements in the refugees’ camps in Pahlevi, Persia (Iran) and Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia).
To vibrantly visualize the history of the time and to portray the delicateness of Sophia’s and Helena’s personal lives, the filmmaker extensively uses archival materials such as still photographs, maps, interviews, and unique footage, as well as short clips from Sophia’s movies Silver City (1984) and Letters from Poland (1978).
Once My Mother is a heart-wrenching yet inspirational story of a mother-daughter relationship as well as a powerful narration of a historical witness and survivor of WWII. This film may be of interest to those individuals seeking a unique case study of complex inter-personal relationships set within a much greater historical context. The documentary will be a fine addition to public and academic libraries.
Awards
- Best Feature Documentary, Australian Directors Guild Awards, 2014
- Audience Award, Krakow Film Festival, 2014
- Best Music in Documentary, Australian Screen Music Awards, 2014
- AWFJ EDA Award, Best Documentary, St. Louis International Film Festival, 2015