SONGS ABOUT MY MOTHER

Songs About My Mother was inspired by Peter Russells’ talk at Durban Film Mart. Peter is a Hollywood script writer and consultant who has worked on some of the biggest Emmy award winning shows. In a packed room of African creatives Peter said “write about your character’s pain, write about their core wound, look into yourself, write about your deepest darkest secrets and dare yourself to share that with the world”. He neatly wrapped up the theme of Songs About My Mother.

The story investigates the guilt resulting from terrible things we might have done in the past. We see stories all the time of people being wronged, who go head to head with the villain. But when we are the villain who has done somebody else wrong, our own guilt and conscience has to be reckoned with. Our protagonist in Songs About My Mother feeds off this pain and guilt to build a new life for herself and leave her unforgivable actions behind, but then she must face the truth of who she has become.

How do we compensate for our deep psychological wounds. Ray Donovan is a chauvinist, Frank Underwood is manipulating, Walter White is ego driven and they all use these traits to compensate for internal pain. Hide the pain to feel good about ourselves while pushing the knife deeper and deeper into the wound. Needless to say, real healing will only happen when we face the demon, come to terms with it and own up to who we really are.

I’ve had to look into myself while building this protagonist, what my personal wounds are and what hinders my growth. It is hard to look into the mirror when you’ve done terrible things in your life. Songs About My Mother is the story of a woman who must confront who she really is before growing into who she wishes to be.

Songs About My Mother is an unassuming musical, using films like Sarafina and Ray as a measure of what a musical and a powerful narrative can offer. Songs About My Mother studies the pressures and challenges of it’s characters, expressing their musicality and acting ability simultaneously in creative ways.

I’m driven to tell this story to challenge the notion of good vs bad in people.
I believe good and evil exists in all of us, the difference is how individuals act on it. Ethics and morality are not inherent in us. Infant children show traits of jealousy and intolerance at an early age. They are taught to share and in some cases even to love. But with morality needing to be taught, what one may see as a moral act, another may see as evil. It’s a complex psychological issue that this film is addressing via a thought experiment dubbed “The Trolley Experiment”.