Filming the Absent Mother
14th of June 2014

This symposium was designed around the juxtaposition of two films – Histoire d’un secret (Mariana Otero 2003) and Un’ora sola ti vorrei (Alina Marazzi 2002) -, both about the disappearance of the director’s mother. Neither child was told anything about the circumstances of her mother’s death. Using differing aesthetic strategies, both films investigate the mother’s life and, in the process of unraveling the mystery of her disappearance, reveal social and psychosocial problems and issues that continue to be relevant for feminism. But the directors also use cinema and narration to address their own loss, creating a moving and emotional, as well as a historical and political, dialogue between the two films

Introduction of Alina Marazzi by Laura Mulvey

Introduction of Mariana Otero by Marlene Monteiro

Panel A: Political and Psychoanalytic Context
 Speakers: Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck), Lesley Caldwell (UCL), Andrew Asibong (Birkbeck)
 Chair: Sasha Roseneil (Birkbeck)

Q&A with the directors: Mariana Otero and Alina Marazzi

Panel B: Aesthetics of Cinema and Narration
Speakers: Marlène Monteiro (Birkbeck), Emma Wilson (Cambridge)
Chair: Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck)