Lunch with Äiti (Mum)

Interview with Jenni Kivistö, director of Äiti (Mum)

 This is a very moving, intimate portrait. Can you tell us why you chose to film this moment between mother and daughter?
It is a very personal film, as the mother is my own mother and I’m the daughter of the film. My mother was diagnosed to have frontotemporal dementia in 2009. The moment this film captures was one of the last conversations we managed to have. Now my mother can hardly talk anymore.

 What do the diary entries reveal? Why did you pick those particular entries?
I was very moved when I found my mother’s diary notes from the past years. I felt somehow criminal to read her diary but at the same time I found these very last sentences she wrote in her life beautiful and deeply touching. They are like small poems that reveal her inner life, despair, thoughts and feelings which she was not able to utter anymore. By reading those few lines I could get connected to her again.

 What would you like the audience to retain from it?
The audience is like a mirror, I would like them to teach me why this film was made, what message it wants to give.

 Can you tell us about your first steps in filmmaking?
I studied cinematic arts in Black Maria Film School, Bogota, as I lived six years in Colombia. During the last year of my studies I travelled to the desert in northern Colombia. I was quite obsessed by the feeling of strange familiarity that I felt with the indigenous Wayuu who live in the desert. To my surprise that idea got funded by IDARTES and I started to make a film about it. Land Within (2016, 60 min,), received its world premiere at DOK Leipzig’s Next Masters Competition in 2016 and will be shown next at the festival Punto de Vista in Spain. After many years in Colombia I moved back to Finland and found myself working with refugees and making several short films against racism and discrimination.

 Any cinematic coups de cœur in the past year you’d like to tell us about?
I fell in love with the desert and the concept of the reality the indigenous Wayuu have. They believe in dreams and their ability to shape what is real. That place gave me cinematic inspiration and I started to think about different realities that could be created through the language of film.

 If you’ve already been to Clermont-Ferrand, could you share with us an anecdote or story from the festival? If not, what are your expectations for this year? 
I have never been to Clermont-Ferrand before. I expect the festival to have an enthusiastic atmosphere to discuss and share life through great films.

Äiti is being shown in International Competition I6.