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Year of Production 2019

My Dear Mother

English title: My Dear Mother
Original title: Ráhkkis eadni
German title: My Dear Mother *
Finland, 2019

Director: Simma, Paul
Production company: Ab Saamifilmi oy
Age recommendation: 10 years and up
Length: 87 min.
Film genre: Documentary

Synopsis:
Tasha is an eleven-year-old Lapp girl. She is an inmate of a Russian orphanage, even when she is not an orphan. Tasha believes that her mother is dead and that her father is in jail for life. To survive, she has found a Russian stepmother at the orphanage.

One day her biological mother suddenly calls her. Tasha is afraid since the authorities had declared her mother dead by a drug overdose several years ago. Her mother claims that she is now drug-free. Tasha has mixed feelings for this newfound "mother". She is longing to have a mother of her own, but still, she is afraid. At the end of the film, Tasha reaches the most difficult crossroads of her life. She has to make a decision that will have an enormous impact on the rest of her life. Will she become a Sami by choosing to live with her biological mother, or should she become a Russian by choosing a life with the Russian foster mother appointed by the orphanage?

In the background of Tasha's fate lurks the greater global narrative about the "stolen generations". Children belonging to different indigenous peoples all over the world were "stolen" and placed in orphanages hoping that they will be assimilated into the majority population. In North America and Australia, the "stolen children" constitute a relatively large population group. For years the authorities in the English-speaking former colonies have been devoting a great deal of effort to finding ways to achieve reconciliation. In Europe, the "stolen generations" remain silent, even though many indigenous parents were doomed as not capable of looking after their children.

Festivals:
Oulu CFF 2020 (awarded)

Website: mydearmother.com

World sales address/es:
Saamifilmi (SF)