Things I Could Never Tell My Mother trailer [Bangladeshi documentary on Islam, gender, identity]

Описание: A personal documentary exploring a Bangladeshi daughter’s evolving relationship with her suddenly devout Muslim mother, revealing tensions between Islam, intimacy, and identity within the private space of family life.

SYNOPSIS
This participatory documentary explores the complex dynamics of religious conservatism, gender roles, and generational conflict in a Muslim family in Bangladesh through a deeply intimate mother-daughter relationship.
The director’s mother was a liberal woman who gave her last name to her daughter. It was her love of poetry and art that influenced the director to become a filmmaker. But the mother’s return from a pilgrimage to become a devout Muslim has profoundly reshaped their family relationships and personal worldview. She had wanted the director to become a painter, but now she disapproves of her daughter’s career because of her religion that forbids images. The generational and ideological gap between the secular director and her mother widens – a gap rooted in different understandings of Islam, womanhood and family duty.
Through the lens of an autobiographical ethnography, the director explores the ways in which Islamic piety, maternal love, and gender expectations are intertwined in family life.

INFORMATION
1 hour 20 minutes | English and French subtitles | HD (1920×1080)
Bangladesh, France | 2022
Director/Producer: Humaira Bilkis

AWARDS & FILM FESTIVALS
1. Official Selection for Best of Fests, 2023 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
2. Official Selection, 2022 Vision du Reel
3. Official Selection, 2022 Etats Generaux du Film Documentaire, Lussas Doc
4. SIVER NANOOK award for Discovery of New Subjects and New Heroes, 2022 International Documentary Film Festival “FLAHERTIANA”
5. Opening Film, 2023 Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival
6. Official Selection, 2023 International Documentary & Short Film Festival of Kerala
7. Official Selection, 2023 Festival International du Film Ethnographique du Québec
8. Official Selection, 2023 Giffoni International Film Festival
And more.

HIGHLIGHT ENDORSEMENT
“Director Humaira Bilkis invites us into a private space that is achingly relatable in her feature length documentary… This documentary… exemplifies how portraying your truth needs nothing more than courage.”
Sadia Khalid Reeti, Dhaka Tribune

“Things I Could Never Tell My Mother is an intimate documentary which allows the filmmaker to wrestle with her internal conflicts… a cathartic exercise in many ways. One which allows Bilkis to approach the subject from an unusual angle.”
Rob Aldam, Backseat Mafia

“A contemporary Bangla documentary film that reveals a very personal story… as well as the socio-cultural dimensions in the context of Bangladeshi Muslim identity.”
Raihan_Zobayer, Letterboxd reviewer

REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION
1. Things I Could Never Tell My Mother has been broadcast on NHK in Japan and Lyon Capitale TV in France.
2. This documentary presents the influence of religious education on individual choices, the performance of purdah, and the broader shifts in Bangladeshi cultural norms since independence.