Maa || Documentary

Voiceover

Presenter(s)

Christopher Riggs, Jazmine DiGiorgio, Taylor Neumann, Maddy Santamaria

Abstract or Description

Filmed over the past two years in Kolkata, India; Ontario, Canada; and Denver, Colorado, "Maa" is a documentary film following a fatigued septuagenarian on her road to realizing her dream of gazing upon Niagara Falls before her last breath. Inspired by films like "The Architect" (2016), the film's narration comes from her daughter's perspective. It is a testimony to the cross-cultural collaboration between the Satyajit Ray Film Institute of Kolkata and CU Denver, creating an intersection between these two worlds that enhances the learning potential in how composition, color, editing, and sound influence a story through perceived cultural emotions. Growing up in a world that condemns female independence, this character study explores what it means to cast aside societal norms in India and reclaim one's independence while raising a family as a single mother. Maa's health is debilitating; her ability to walk is slowly withering away. Her knees bowed, and her hands shriveled. Her eyesight is weak, yet she remains an avid reader. As the film progresses, it begins to delve into broader, more universal themes touching on depression through the lens of loneliness and the influence that spiritualism and human connection have on a person. It is a story about mothers celebrating the strength of living alone at eighty with a fierce optimism draped in hope in a post-modern era. On March 22, 2020, the West Bengal Government declared a lockdown due to COVID-19, shifting the documentary's entire tone and the Falls metaphor to that of her loved ones who elude her in an unrelenting pandemic. As Maa's health deteriorates, so do her chances of seeing the Falls. Have her chances of reuniting with her daughter, who immigrated to the U.S., slipped away? As the film concludes, the fight has left Maa. Her lust for life has been swept away by the fury of the pandemic. Forced into further isolation and unending grief, "Maa" is a testament to the year 2020 and the hardships of years past, which challenged the human spirit in ways not yet known to us. Lives transformed as lives were lost and destinies changed—"Maa" witnesses all of that through the landscape of cinema.