Presented at the 78th Biennale, 107 Mothers (Cenzorka), directed by Peter Kerekes, looks into the unforgiving world of a Ukrainian women prison, searching for empathy and maternal care.
The 78th Venice International Film Festival, organised by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by Alberto Barbera, is in full swing, after opening on September 1st with Pedro Almodóvar’s Madres Paralelas. Like every year, the festival is take place at Venice Lido, and will be live until September 11th, 2021. As part of this year’s program, we have delved into the Orizzonti Competition, where we have spotted 107 Mothers (original title: Cenzorka) by Peter Kerekes, also presented in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section of the 69th San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Peter Kerekes, mainly known for his documentary works, presents his new film, 107 Mothers, a narrative film told through a documentary form about the women serving their sentence at a Ukrainian prison, primarily focusing on women who’ve just entered motherhood. 107 Mothers opens with a surprising live birth, the film sets a questionable tone due to its graphic nature, but the following scene shows the mothers being led to the prison ward without their newborns beginning their sentence, marking its new tone and themes for the film. As we learn more about these women through an interview style lens with the prison ward director, it is realized that these women are jailed due to crimes of passion they’ve committed towards their partners and/or mistresses. 107 Mothers consists of an all women cast depicting the repercussions of the trials and tribulations of their misdoings.
“From among the many stories of the women in Colony 74, I was most inspired by that of a woman who murdered her husband out of jealousy and arrived in the prison pregnant with her child. We spent several years in an actual prison with actual convicts, trying to get close to them and film them not as passive objects, but rather as participating subjects.”
Kerekes’ inspiration for this story and form came from stories from the Black Sea Correction Colony #74. He had a keen interest in the women there so much that he spent years to understand their story. Kerekes’ most interesting idea was to make Maryna Klimova, the actress who plays Lesya, accompany him because if he used an actual convict as the actress, Kerekes didn’t want to risk losing the protagonist if something were to happen. The conception of this story was now fictionalized to create the drama in 107 Mothers where he shows the story of two important women, Lesya and the superior of the prison in Ira.
Lesya, a young woman, is separated from her child in the prison and performs her daily rituals with a strict schedule for waking up, breakfast, classes, work, dinner, and curfew. The other main character is Ira, the boss who commands and acts as the superior in charge over the prison administration team and the convicts. Ira also conducts interviews to these convicts sharing personal information (from Kerekes actual experience in the prison) and shows us the complexity of these women’s lives. Stories ranging from murdering a husband’s mistress, dreams of a soul avenging his death, and becoming pregnant while in prison due to the duration of her sentence, gives insight of these convicts’ lives. Kerekes brilliantly explores the bits and pieces of other women through letters being narrated by Ira, and we see a real empathetic quality to her masculine physicality. The great thing Kerekes shows is Ira’s character displaying her two necessary sides of emotions at work with others and by herself. 3 years passes by, Lesya’s request for parole is denied and her sentence is extended 4 more years. Lesya begins to search for a family member or friend to watch over her son, who is now 3 years old, before he is taken to an orphanage. Second chances are rarely given producing an absence of empathy, deteriorating the lives and souls of these convicts.
Ira’s has sequences with her mother, who constantly complains to Ira to find a husband and have kids. The contrast between Ira and Lesya demonstrate a maternal need that they both want to fulfill in life, but can’t have because although one is convicted, the other is free. They both are at the two ends of the spectrum, but have the same goal, to have a necessary love. Lesya, who has to make certain decisions for her child, and Ira, who can’t seem to find a partner and child, both strive and disappoint themselves in what a mother is. Kerekes’ hybrid of documentary and narrative storytelling shows the personal experience he had at those prisons and this strong intimacy is displayed in 107 Mothers.
