Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is about navigating mental health, coming of age, growing up mixed-race in Cardiff, and a young boy’s imagination.

This story is one I have wanted to tell ever since I started writing. The inspiration for the story has come from the personal experience of my partner. His mum has bipolar disorder, and he grew up navigating the complicated and grown-up world of mental health whilst still trying to be a child. We grew up together, so often, we reflect on the times we were children and some of the things that became ‘normal’ in his life compared to what was ‘normal’ in mine.

With this film, I wanted to explore that coming-of-age moment, where you are old enough to feel the absence of your primary caregiver, but still, perhaps, aren’t old enough to fully understand the situation in its entirety.

Why tell this story now? My mother is a primary school teacher, and over the past few years, during the pandemic, we would often talk about the unprecedented strain this was putting on the children in her classroom and their families, especially single parents who had a lack of support from others. Alongside this, the children and families she saw struggle the most were part of the Black and Ethnic majority. With 1 in 4 people in the UK experiencing a mental health problem each year, the number of children experiencing a parent that’s struggling, who becomes absent, would also be increasing.

And so, Emrys was born. A mixed-race boy, who was wildly imaginative, kind, intelligent and gentle, whose mother was having a mental health crisis. Often, we see these crises in the media as dramatic, violent, extreme, and scary. But my partner’s experience was different, it was silent, it was sudden, and it was simply the person he knew and loved disappearing for a while, and him wondering if there was something he could do to stop it happening.

It was important to me that this film also spoke of my culture and my Bajan heritage through the character of ‘Betty’. Growing up mixed-race in Cardiff, I often felt a pull between two cultures and two identities. I wanted to create a sense of balance with the film; Emrys experiences a form of loss, but he also gains cultural perspective, an aspect of his identity he maybe wouldn’t have had otherwise.

I am constantly inspired by film and TV makers that push the boundaries of genre and ultimately make things ‘beautiful’ whatever the subject matter. Projects that are aesthetically pleasing whilst also thought-provoking, socially relevant and ground-breaking. Mother’s Day certainly inspired us as we made it and we hope it will inspire others when they get to see it.