Mother Land

Feb 2, 2022

1h 19m

★ 6.0

A Year on the Sacred Mountain

Overview

When filmmaker Mari Soppela took her children and husband to live for a year on a sacred mountain in her native Finland, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream to share the arctic wilderness of her childhood with her family. But when years later her children turn the camera onto her, she is forced to confront her motivation for filming their lives in this searching and searingly honest cinematic exploration of identity, belonging and motherhood. Filmed over the course of 27 years, Mother Land challenges us all to examine the landscapes we carry within us and the narratives we create to make sense of our lives.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

LPMA Productions

Cinatura

Mother Land Trailers

Cast

Self / Narrator (voice)

Mari Soppela

Self

Ilari Anemaet

Self

Sanna Anemaet

IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.

5.8

Prinzessinnenbad

May 31, 2007

A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.

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5.0

Stuttgart Shanghai

Feb 22, 2007

A young pair from Stuttgart fly to Shanghai to hop aboard the textile business of his father while she prepares for the birth of their son. A story about the ever more common movement of Germans into the East for professional gain.

7.5

Speeding, of Course

Mar 6, 2025

70-year-old Timo makes the most of his short ride to work. Speeding up on a bicycle ends up in a ditch, but the adrenaline rush leaves a feeling of pleasure.

0.0

Timuti

Jan 1, 2012

In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in the Eastern Arctic, a baby boy has come into the world and they call him Timuti, a name that recurs across generations of his people, evoking other Timutis, alive and dead, who will nourish his spirit and shape his destiny.

6.6

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

Apr 7, 2005

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

7.1

March of the Penguins

Jan 26, 2005

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

7.0

The Story of the Weeping Camel

Aug 12, 2004

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.

0.0

Quatro em Linha

May 2, 2025

No overview available.

7.1

Capturing the Friedmans

May 30, 2003

An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.

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0.0

Köyhät, nöyrät ja häpeämättömät

Nov 4, 1999

Documentary film about four families in Pori, Finland, all struggling with unemployment and poverty.

7.3

Punks

Nov 22, 2019

The parents are at their wits’ end, so a temporary supervision order is the last hope for a group of teenagers in Punks. Now, on a remote farm in France, they’re going to have to get their lives back on track, with the help of a counselor. If they want any chance of a happy life, they need to engage in some frank and painful conversations. Mitchel has to find a way to get along with his father, but maybe too much has already happened since his mother died. Jahlano is already at the next stage: he’s no longer allowed to live with his mother, and needs to get over the disappointment. Mike, meanwhile, is struggling with his image as a boy who’s “got a screw loose.” Filmed in constant close-up by director Maasja Ooms, the teenagers try to tame their demons with music and therapy, but problems from the past keep resurfacing. In this intimate and sincere portrait, these troubled kids show us their most vulnerable sides.

8.0

Sisters

May 1, 1999

Two old sisters, living in the same Warsaw apartment, sit on a bench and talk. The 87-year-old elder one seems to care for the other reluctantly and treat her badly. The younger, who is said to be clumsier, has walking problems.

5.0

Benek Blues

May 1, 2000

The action is placed in a cramped flat in Warsaw’s district of Ochota. A father and a son, both bedridden, live in a fascinating symbiosis. The son, a well‑known photographer Bernard ben Dobrowolski, is lying in bed because a chronic condition has deformed his body and immobilized him. The father, Dominik, has recently suffered from a stroke. Now they are taking care of each other and crowds of visitors move through their room.

0.0

Deshilando Luz

May 29, 2025

A film essay that intertwines the director's gaze with that of her late mother. Beyond exploring mourning and absence as exclusively painful experiences, the film pays tribute to her mother through memories embodied by places and objects that evidence the traces of her existence. The filmmaker asks herself: What does she owe her mother for who she is and how she films? To what extent does her film belong to her?

0.0

Soaring Over America

Jan 1, 2010

Created from public television's popular Over series, this is a tour unlike any other! Fly above landscapes and landmarks in Alaska; the Pacific Northwest; California; the Southwest; Chicago; New York City; Washington, D.C.; and everywhere in between.

6.5

Abducted in Plain Sight

May 26, 2017

A family falls prey to the manipulative charms of a neighbor, who abducts their adolescent daughter. Twice.

10.0

A Jupatarama

Mar 4, 2024

No overview available.

0.0

Angels Gather Here

Jul 16, 2017

Angels Gather Here’ follows Jacki Trapman’s journey back to her hometown of Brewarrina to celebrate her parents, Bill and Barbara’s 60th Wedding Anniversary.  Going home is never easy for Jacki. Amidst the family celebrations she reflects on her life; her story symbolising the strength, dignity and resilience of many Aboriginal people in the face of adversity.

0.0

Strudel Sisters

May 2, 2016

Two elderly sisters share the delicate art of making traditional Hungarian strudel and reveal a deeply personal family story about their mother, who taught them everything they know.

Mother Land

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Mother Land Trailers