PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE EMBASSY OF ESTONIA

Thanks to the generous support of the Estonian Embassy, the ANU Film Group is the first and only place where an Australian audience will have the opportunity to see this darkly comic crime mystery.
The film centres on Elsa, the mother and full time carer of Lauri, a teacher who has been in a coma since being shot in suspicious circumstances. Attentive in her duties, Elsa receives Lauri’s visitors – friends, students, his girlfriend, his boss and others – who come to update the unconscious Lauri on their lives and unburden themselves of their troubles.

As the police inquiry into the crime progresses, some of Lauri’s closest ties are called into question. Director Kadri Kõusaar cunningly navigates a script that slowly pieces together the truth behind the shooting using the visitors’ confessionals to the comatose protagonist and cleverly building a web of motives among the tight-knit community. Bathed in the pastel tones of post-Soviet life, Mother is a smartly-crafted whodunit set in a small town where just about everyone is dreaming of something bigger.

This film has been compared to the off-kilter mysteries of Fargo and Rams. If you, like me, enjoyed those you really should come and see this.