MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS
2015
short documentary film
Director and cinematography
Original title: Matky a dcéry
Director: Ivana Hucíková
Director: Ivana Hucíková
Editor: Lucia Kopačková
Sound mix: Boris Vereš
Music: Veronika Lečková-Seppová
Produced by: Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava
Runtime: 26 min
Year of production: 2015
EU Distribution: KineDok 2016
Four generations of women, four generations of mothers and daughters. Each shaped by her own time, yet bound by the same emotional legacy. Mothers and Daughters explores both the tenderness and the tension of one of the most complex relationships we know, revealing how love, conflict, and understanding are passed from one generation to the next.
Mothers and Daughters is a short documentary film about four generations of women living together in a small village in northern Slovakia. Ninety-one-year-old Mamka fills her days with magazines, folk songs, and the few stories she still remembers from her youth. Her daughter Vlastička has made her home a place of care, looking after both her aging mother and her youngest granddaughter, Natálka. The family’s main provider, Vlastička’s daughter and Natálka’s mother Patrika, leaves for work every morning before sunrise, carrying the weight of responsibility on her shoulders.
Set in a large house with a vast garden and two cats, but without any men, the film observes the quiet rhythms of everyday life shaped by loss and change. Widowed and divorced, these women have arrived at a life together through difficult turns, finding strength in their shared space and mutual dependence. As they gather around the table to look through old family photographs with Natálka, memories begin to surface. Stories of love, disappointment, and endurance unfold, revealing the complex relationships they once had with their husbands. Natálka learns how her parents first met, but also why their relationship could not last. Through intimate moments and gentle observation, the film celebrates the beauty, vulnerability, and resilience of these women, and the deep bonds that hold them together. Mothers and Daughters reflects on whether understanding our past can help us move forward, and how the stories we inherit shape who we become.
