Award-winning director Nanni Moretti’s (
Dear Diary, MVFF 1994)
My Mother is a semi-autobiographical drama starring Moretti’s frequent muse Margherita Buy as a filmmaker beset by personal trials, most notably her mother’s failing health and a lead actor (John Turturro as Huggins) who can’t act or remember his lines.
My Mother teases with perception as the narrative moves between memory, dream, movie, and life. As Margherita’s life unravels, she tells her actors, “Play the character but stand next to the character as you.” Though confusing, her directorial note functions as the underlying philosophy of
My Mother —a “film within a film” in which the storyline echoes aspects of Moretti’s life from his own profession, to his mother’s as a dying scholar of ancient languages. After flubbing a line in Margherita’s film, Huggins rails against being an actor and shouts, “I want out of here, man. I want to get back to reality.” The question is, which reality?
Sponsored by:
Co-presented by
Italian Cultural Institute