WHITE MAMA
Competition
A magnanimous maternal heart and the will to provide one more child with safety and love, move a Russian patchwork family to adopt young Daniil. The two parents and the six children from mother Alina’s first marriage to an Ethiopian man ostensibly offer the ideal environment for a child who must adapt to a new life structure. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes apparent that the family may be in over their heads: the freshly adopted boy struggles to overcome the trauma of his past and lets his neurotic impulses loose on the family members. Their once harmonious life is no longer – the parents are exhausted, the children slowly distance themselves from their new brother. Either Alina and her family are going to have to accept their new circumstances or the adopted child will experience renewed rejection. The film stays conspicuously close to the family members in its camerawork, generating an impressive level of empathy that compels the audience to ask how they themselves would act in such a morally complicated situation.
BELAYA MAMA / DIE WEISSE MAMA
RUS 2018 / 97 min
Language: Russian
Director: Evgeniya Ostanina, Zosya Rodkevich
- Screenplay: Evgeniya Ostanina, Susanna Baranzhieva
- Producer: Alexander Rastorguev, Pavel Kostomarov, Ilya Malkin
- Production Company: CHBK Film, Black and White Production
- World Sales: Marx Film
A magnanimous maternal heart and the will to provide one more child with safety and love, move a Russian patchwork family to adopt young Daniil. The two parents and the six children from mother Alina’s first marriage to an Ethiopian man ostensibly offer the ideal environment for a child who must adapt to a new life structure. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes apparent that the family may be in over their heads: the freshly adopted boy struggles to overcome the trauma of his past and lets his neurotic impulses loose on the family members. Their once harmonious life is no longer – the parents are exhausted, the children slowly distance themselves from their new brother. Either Alina and her family are going to have to accept their new circumstances or the adopted child will experience renewed rejection. The film stays conspicuously close to the family members in its camerawork, generating an impressive level of empathy that compels the audience to ask how they themselves would act in such a morally complicated situation.
- Screenplay: Evgeniya Ostanina, Susanna Baranzhieva
- Producer: Alexander Rastorguev, Pavel Kostomarov, Ilya Malkin
- Production Company: CHBK Film, Black and White Production
- World Sales: Marx Film