BAFTA award-winning British director, Professor Victoria Mapplebeck, will see her smartphone feature, Motherboard, given its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 13.
Motherboard explores motherhood, filmed over 20 years by Victoria and charts the trials, traumas and occasional triumphs of raising a child alone, as well as celebrating messy lives and proof that epic journeys can begin and end at home.
At the age of 38, Victoria Mapplebeck found herself single, pregnant and broke. Unable to combine motherhood with freelance directing, she was forced to abandon her TV career, instead turning the camera on herself and her son, Jim.
Victoria first began documenting their lives with her old DVCAM video before shooting almost daily on five generations of smartphones, from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 15. She recorded hundreds of hours of footage, capturing each twist and turn in Jim’s life, from the thumbs-up he gave her during her first scan, to his first day at college.
Motherboard is a complex, personal and unsentimental portrait of a mother-son relationship from birth to adulthood, exploring the ways in which Victoria and Jim navigate two generations of absent fathers and Victoria’s breast cancer diagnosis when Jim was just 13.
The warm, playful and sometimes strained relationship between Victoria and Jim plays out against a backdrop of family life unfiltered.
Victoria, a professor in the Department for Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “Many women are raising children alone, by choice or by circumstance. I wanted to make a film which reflected the diversity of contemporary family life and create an unfiltered and unromanticised portrait of solo motherhood.
“I’ve been filming the highs and lows of our family life since Jim was born. We’re really excited that Motherboard will have its UK premiere at London Film Festival.
“Motherboard has been 20 years in the making - Jim and I are thrilled that we’re finally at the finish line.”
Iain Dodgeon, Executive Producer for OKRE (Opening Knowledge across Research & Entertainment) said: “OKRE are delighted to back Victoria in bringing this incredibly intimate story to screen, supporting her in the challenges of portraying her lived experience of single parenthood with care and sensitivity.
“Provocatively authentic and highly personal, Motherboard taps into universally familiar themes yet offers a surprisingly fresh perspective.”
Stephanie Fuchs, CEO of Autlook Filmsales added: “Motherboard is the creative and singular work of a fantastic filmmaker. It’s full of conflicts, beauty and humour, a family movie which is cross-generational in its themes and stories.
“Motherboard will appeal to anyone interested in the universal themes of family, parenthood, childhood and how memories are captured in the digital age.”
Motherboard is made by First Person Films, shot, directed and edited by Victoria Mapplebeck and produced by Mapplebeck’s longtime collaborator, Debbie Manners. This feature-length documentary is supported by OKRE and WFTV.
Find out more about the premiere and how to book tickets for this and another film showing and Q&A with Victoria and Jim on Saturday 19 October 2024 at 12:30pm at the Curzon Soho Cinema.
