This Is My Mother

Post-screening discussion with producer Priscilla Bertin on Jan 23

Joyous and heartbreaking in alternating breaths, French writer-director Julien Carpentier’s searing family tale stars a fierce Agnès Jaoui (The Taste of Others) as Judith, a middle-aged woman who reunites with her 33-year-old son, Pierre (William Lebghil), after two years apart. Judith has just escaped from a clinic, where she was being treated for bipolar disorder. Her tornado-like reappearance naturally upends Pierre’s quiet and comfortable life as a florist, resurfacing daily anxieties and lingering resentments. Yet, over the course of a single whirlwind day, the two will find common ground. The gradual recalibration of their relationship is depicted in an enormously touching and often very funny fashion. Buoyed by a pair of sensitively drawn, lived-in performances, This Is My Mother depicts both the fragility and unbreakable force of the maternal bond.