Projects
The Little Loves
While mothering her widowed mother, a childless woman questions her own ideas about how to live and love.
It is summer, and 42-year-old Teresa moves to the countryside to care for Ani, her widowed mother, who has broken her leg. Trapped on the sofa in her pyjamas, Ani is completely dependent on her daughter, who immerses herself in the housekeeping chores. Even so, Ani always finds a reason to complain, from Teresa’s gazpacho to her decision not to have children. Living with her mother after many years seems unbearable to Teresa, especially as she has had to cancel her vacation plans to visit a long-distance lover in New York. Ani tries to convince her to find a more accessible man and settle down before it is too late. Otherwise, childless, who will look after her when she too takes a fall in her old age? Teresa, however, has no intention of giving up her independence. They each understand life in their own way. During the summer, they will have to accept each other’s decisions about how to live. Actually, they are exactly in the same position: living on their own and knowing that, in spite of everything, they can always enjoy a walk together – even though this summer Ani needs a wheelchair.
One summer, my mother asked me if I did not want children. She had never asked it like that before, with her “did not” she was assuming that my decision was made. And yet she kept trying: “What if you regret it when you are older?” That question made me shudder; a hackneyed idea echoes in my head: “If you do not settle down, you will end up on your own, old and lonely”. I belong to a generation where the “childless woman” is becoming more and more prevalent, and yet we are women with no references. Our mothers are not our role models anymore just because they had us. And even so, now that I am approaching my forties and could be a mother but am not, the only certainty I have is that I am my mother’s daughter and I still have her. As a woman filmmaker, I want to portray this mother-daughter relationship to raise the question that we must always face, no matter which generation we come from: how to live our lives. I like to quote Annie Ernaux when she says that her whole story as a woman is going down a flight of stairs and hanging back at each step.
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