Feature Narrative Competition | Georgia, Estonia | Georgian, with Arabic subtitles | 107 min
In post Soviet Tbilisi a 50-year-old housewife, Manana, has a wild passion for writing but none of her family members really supports her wish to become a writer least of all her husband and biggest critic Anri. She decides to read a book she had secretly been writing to her family and their very structured life where she played the role of the loving and highly domesticated housewife and mother starts to fall apart. The fusion of reality and imagination is disturbing but Manana, who is not at all concerned about the consequences of the turmoil she has caused, is on a roll and there is no stopping her. As the events and characters of her literary project unfold, everything that was familiar and normal starts to collapse. Her fictional elements fuse with true events and the line that separates them becomes blurry. She escapes from her life's mundane details to an imaginary world where she is a mythical monster that no one can abuse or take for granted. In fiction she finds a persona and voice that liberate her completely but terrify her family members.
In Scary Mother, film director and script writer, Ana Urushadze, portrays the life of a woman going through what seems to be a mid-life crisis. Through Manana's story she sheds light on the social confines of being a mother and wife in today's world. The pressures a woman is forced to tolerate, that touches on many social aspects. Scary Mother is a fine mix of humor, bitterness and psychological aspects, of women's lives. The lead female character depicted by Nato Murvanidze could be any woman who suffers from neglect, arginalization and abuse.
Ana Urushadze graduated from the Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Georgia State Film University (TAFU) in 2013 and directed several short films such as Ideas (2010) and One Man Loved Me (2012). Sashishi Deda (Scary Mother) is her feature film debut and the winner of the Golden Leopard award in the Best First Feature category at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. It also received an independent jury prize.
Connect with us
