Mother’s wish

Acclaimed Finnish director Joonas Berghäll asked her mother to reveal her biggest wishes and greatest fears. Her answer inspired Joonas to travel around the world and capture these touching stories from other mothers. The women in this film have struggled through life against all odds. They give us all hope for a better tomorrow.

MOTHER’S WISH is a documentary film that gathers together stories from women in different parts of the world. The narrators of the stories form an unbroken chain around the globe. The stories are connected by the theme of motherhood: the presence or absence of a mother has been a decisive factor in the fates of our main characters.

Told together, the women’s narratives form a poetic and intense film of motherhood and love: of the moment after first childbirth, of a mother’s pride on her daughter’s first school day, and the longing and worries of a mother, who works far away from her child, but also of the effects of tragic events, such as the emotional scars left by, or breaking free from forced marriage – but above all the stories speak of survival: The women have struggled through life against incredible odds. They give the viewer hope of a better tomorrow.

The central themes of the film are motherhood and love. The mothers’ wishes are universal ideals of a better world – one which we would want to leave our own children. Women around the world were interviewed for the film’s script, which has shaped the fifteen scenes on mothers’ universal wishes and fears. The film deals with these ideas through personal stories, transforming the personal into political and socially critical debate.

Link to UNICEF page here.

PROJECT

Title: Mother’s Wish
Director: Joonas Berghäll
Producer: Joonas Berghäll, Satu Majava
Co-producer: Jesper Jack
Cinematography Heikki Färm F.S.C., Tuomo Hutri F.S.C.
Editing: Timo Peltola
Music : Jonas Bohlin
Duration: 85
Partners: DFI, UNICEF, Oktober Oy.

STATUS: Premiered 2015