Being mother is the most natural thing in the world. Or so it seems. Yet the demands on women with children have rarely been as overloaded and contradictory as they are in today’s Western world. Promises of happiness are often followed by disadvantages, excessive demands and feelings of guilt. The mother has become an artificially glorified ideal, which nevertheless is often legitimized by the „nature of the woman“. We live in a time when three people could claim to be the same child’s mother: egg donors give their genes to beget children, surrogate mothers deliver babies which they give away immediately after birth, and men raise children by themselves – without a woman at their side. Hence the question arises: What makes a human being a real mother?

Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A...

Barred from racing for breaking stride, a trotting horse finds a new career as a police officer's mo...

IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard work...

An Austrian director followed five successful African music and dance artists with his camera and fo...

Honduran immigrants living in Mexico, teenage siblings Rocío and Ale must take over care of their tw...

Documentary about brother and sister duo The Carpenters, one of the biggest-selling pop acts of the ...

The filmmakers' 21-year-old daughter journeys from locked-down psych wards and diagnostic labels tow...

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed ...
This student film by the award-winning Helena Třeštíková bears many of the hallmarks of her later wo...

Echo is a youngster who can't quite decide if it's time to grow up and take on new responsibilities-...

Hosted by Keeley Hawes, star of the popular television series The Durrells, this documentary reveals...

A mother figure idealized by the cinema, Empress Elisabeth of Austria did not flourish with her four...

Karan and Rohan, two biracial brothers raised in a marginal environment, are finding ways to get sti...

An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the fathe...

A year after Thadd and Shannon gave birth to their son, A Conversation Between Parents highlights a ...

Arctic Tale is a 2007 documentary film from the National Geographic Society about the life cycle of ...

What's it like to "make a family" when you're not part of the traditional hetero couple? Can two bes...

A film about longstanding relationships, family, and the deep consequences of falling in love. While...

This documentary film follows for 22 years a nine-member family involved in the manufacturing of Udo...

A documentary that records the daily life of a mother with a limited life expectancy and a grandmoth...