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When dancer Naissa tells his mum Daniela that he is a man and will be transitioning, she struggles to understand. Through candid personal letters exchanged over three years, dream-like allegorical sequences and cinema verité, Cara Mamma follows Naissa as he stands firmly for his independence and identity, and Daniela as she wrestles with her fear of losing a daughter. As Naissa embarks on his professional dance career and proudly embodies his gender, his mother also embarks on a journey of understanding and acceptance of her son’s choices.
Producer, Director: Sky Neal (she/her)
Letters written by Daniela Essart (She/her) and Naissa Essart Nielsen (he/him)
Editor, Sound Designer: Dara McLarnon (they/them)
Cinematography: James Hughes (he/him)
Additional Cinematography: Sky Neal (she/her).
Executive Producers: Lindsey Dryden (she/her), Charlie Philips (he/him)
Main contributor of music: Bea Brennan (she/her)
Additional music: Dan Bean (he/him)
Associate Producer: Neil Fox (he/him)
Post Production: Sound/Image Cinema Lab at Falmouth University
Advisory team: Su Reby (she/her), Henri T (they/them)
World Premiere at BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Festival.
Now released on Guardian Documentaries
Cara Mamma brings to life a series of intimate letters between a mother (Daniela) and her adult child (Naissa, now 24). Naissa came out as trans to his parents in 2019 and told them he wanted to physically transition. Naissa and Daniela struggled to communicate about his transition, instead agreeing to write letters to each other.
These intimate letters provide the narrative structure of the film and offer the audience a rare insight into this mother-child relationship, as Naissa seeks to understand his mother’s journey towards acceptance and Daniela wrestles to understand her child’s identity and choices.
This process of growing up and navigating shifting identities will resonate with the experiences of families across the world. Understanding developing gender expression requires sensitive negotiation between Naissa and Daniela and in the telling of their story. This film moves through a mix of cinema verité and dynamic, dreamlike, allegorical sequences as they read their letters to each other and move towards visibility and expression.
The film doesn’t avoid difficult and awkward moments between son and parent, amidst the cinematic and beautiful aspects of their journey. Cinema verité captures mother and child together – tensions, affections, negotiations – and also reflects Naissa reclaiming his space and forging his path on his own terms.
Naissa is a professional dancer. In dance he has a tool to explore his shifting identity, the relationship between inner self and physical self, and also the process of disclosing his transness. We witness powerful creative moments of this expression during the film, as he celebrates his body as a dancer and a trans man.
Daniela is founder, artistic director and performer at leading aerial theatre company Scarabeus; creativity is embedded in her life. She shares her heartache as she fears ‘losing’ her child to both adulthood and a different gender identity, and she learns to take pride in her son and his courage as he navigates a formidable path to wholeness and delight in his identity.
With unique access to their relationship, this is a rarely-told story that takes us on an intimate and insightful journey towards understanding and communication, whilst dealing with universal themes of coming of age and motherhood.
Statements from contributors:
“I think trans youth in my position, and parents in my mum’s position need to see themselves represented, and need to see the conversations in such a raw but also loving way. All we ever hear from the media is someone coming out as trans and either their parents embracing them immediately or throwing them out. Relationships are so much more complex than that, and the grey area from coming out to acceptance needs to be seen unapologetically”.Naissa
“All we ever see publicly documented is the coming out, and the end result of acceptance or a standstill of rejection. It’s important to document that liminal area in between, the discovering, growing together, trying to arrive on the same page despite having been on these journeys for different stretches of time. Our journey is important to help other parents and their transgender children to be seen, find solidarity and maybe help re-build their own relationships”.Daniela
This documentary has received development funding from Cultivator (and Screen Cornwall) , The Film and TV Charity’s John Braebourne Award, Goldsmiths University (MAVIS).
A short version has been Commissioned by LYFTA.
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