By Elisabetta Bianchini, Yahoo News
In a profoundly impactful and emotional journey, Jamaican-American poet and activist Staceyann Chin reimagines the meaning mothering in the film A Mother Apart. Travelling from U.S. to Montreal, Jamaica and Germany, following the mother who abandoned Chin, director Laurie Townshend has brilliantly constructed an exploration of Chin’s intentional parenting, and the complexity of Chin’s identity as a daughter, now with her own daughter, Zuri.
The film won three awards at the 2024 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival, which takes place in Toronto. A Mother Apart won awards for Best First Feature, Best Canadian Feature and the Audience Award for Best Documentary. The film is now screening as part of the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival (SJIWFF).
“People have been trying to buy my story, … one of those men that everybody’s like, ‘Thank God I didn’t make that film with him,’ because of all the terrible things that have happened to a lot of women,” Chin told Yahoo Canada in Toronto. “Hollywood, filmmaking people blow smoke up the ass, they tell you, ‘Oh my God because we have a deal with Netflix’ or ‘I have a really good friend who’s really interested and I talked to them, and they’re like, we can do this.'”
“Laurie came to me and said, ‘I really feel like I should make this movie … and I don’t have any money,’ which people in film never say. To get you on the hook they talk about all this money and how Brad Pitt is going to come and like live in your house while they make the film. But there’s a way that she was very honest. She said, … ‘I haven’t made a film before, … but I’m Jamaican, I think your work is important and I think your story matters, and this is the film I want to make.'”
