The Mother and the Bear

Storyline

Egyptian filmmaker Yasmina El Kamaly reflects on her family’s matrilineal history by examining her relationship with her mother, as well as the complicated bond between her mother and grandmother. Using journals, home videos and letters, she locates their longing for affection and the dysfunctional ways they go about getting it—offering and rebuffing attention, smothering and straining love—as the root.