MOTHER
Pomm works in Thailand in an elderly care home for European people with Altzheimer’s, where their wealthy relatives have placed them given the low-cost high-quality care. Pomm is also a mother of three children which she rarely sees as she works in a faraway town to make enough money to raise them. A documentary which sounds a poignant alarm on the symbolic and literal values lost, silently observing life as it unfolds unscathed through its terrifying and varied contradictions. Simply devastating. In attendance of the director (on the first screening, 25/09)
BELGIUM, THE NETHERLANDS | 2019 | COLOR | DCP | 82΄ | THAI, SWISS GERMAN, ENGLISH
It is not often that a documentary can touch you so tenderly, on so sensitive spots while dealing moderately and seriously with political issues. ‘Mother’ does precisely that. Pomm works in Thailand at a care facility for elderly people with Alzheimer’s, which only accepts wealthy central-Europeans who are provided with all day care at prices and quality not to be found in Europe. But Pomm is a mother of three and works two jobs so she rarely sees her kids.
With unusual subtlety, Bilsen realizes a world of scary and versatile imbalance where a fierce disease is enough to reveal the painful gaps of the advanced (…) world and the overwhelming empathy of ‘another person’, the (real) heroine from Third World Thailand. A touching documentary about our symbolic and literal humanity lost. I.D.
DIRECTOR: Kristof Bilsen
SCREENWRITERS: Kristof Bilsen, Xan Márquez Caneda
DoP: Kristof Bilsen, Marko Milovanovic
MUSIC: Kyle Bobby Dunn
EDITOR: Maarten Janssens
KRISTOF BILSEN
40 year-old director from Belgium. He got his Master at the UK National Film School. Founder of Limerick production company, he teaches documentary, narration and production. He has directed and produced several short and medium length documentaries while ‘Elephant’s Dream’ (2014) had an international festival course.
FILMOGRAPHY
2019 MOTHER
2014 Elephant's Dream
2011 Parallel Lives
2011 The White Elephant
2011 The Perfect Belgian
