Editor’s Pitch


Telling a story because it has personal meaning to the filmmaker is a powerful place to start a narrative – and such is the origin for Motherland. It might seem odd for director Jennifer Steinman to put her close friend and others through a film process while they deal with their own grief, but these are women who need to talk and need to share. Where I think this film’s strength lies is in saying a simple thing – if you want help and perspective, go to those unfortunate enough to have learnt to smile after enduring too much of what you’re going through. Wisdom and lightness are hard earned – and we’re all going to need to deal with something similar at some point in our lives. Time to get educated.



Motherland is a sensitive and nuanced depiction of the grieving process in six newly bereaved American mothers. In a bid to do something positive, these women, all of whom have recently lost a child, make a two week trip to South Africa to volunteer to work with impoverished children.

The women’s’ experiences in South Africa are a universe away from the comforts they have taken for granted in the United States. They assist teachers in over-crowded day care centres, lead activities with abused and at-risk teens, and help care for disabled youngsters. The work is hard but rewarding and provides a welcome reprieve from the depression, isolation and stagnation they have felt since the death of their children.

By giving so much emotional care to these disadvantaged children, the women begin to engage with maternal feelings they have cut themselves off from until now. Director Jennifer Steinman’s sensitive camera follows the journey of women learning to love again but without the pain associated with their bereavement.

All six women are from vastly different strata in American society and this seems to provide them with a special source of comfort. For though their modes of expression may differ, they soon realise the similarities in the feelings they are undergoing. As such they begin the process of putting their pain in context of what they do still have in their lives and what they can have in the future.

In the end, these women prove the benefits of positive action when dealing with grief this strong. Their interaction with children whose lives have been so blighted yet who manage to remain so positive provides perspective on their own woes. The South African pilgrimage the women undertake one lasts 17 days, but the intensity and otherness of the trip allows the six women to begin to overcome guilt and a haunting sense of inadequacy.

The death of a child may be the worst a parent ever has to go through, but Motherland proves great loss does not have to lead to great emptiness – life and happiness does go on.