RIGA IFF: Solomamma

Janicke Askevold
Solomamma
Solomamma
NO, DK, LV, LT, FI
2025, 99’, no, en
Age 12+

 

Do we want to know everything about the past to feel secure about the future? Edith has determined her life on her own. She doesn’t call herself a single mother – the very idea makes her shudder. She selected a sperm donor from a bank, and now she is a forty-something raising a five-year-old son and working in journalism. But Edith’s resolve to be the one in control is replaced by prickly curiosity when she learns the identity of her son’s biological father. Is narcissism hereditary? Will dyslexia affect her child too? Or perhaps she should invite the donor for an interview – under the pretext of being herself, that is, a journalist?

 

Not knowing makes us weak, but the will to know compels us to cross boundaries – says Norwegian director Askevold, deftly tying together threads of comedy and drama. What may seem to be a Nordic humour piece on the most current issues in developed societies in the hygge philosophy of cosiness, is far more nuanced than it initially appears. Echoing the ironic heights of Östlund and thrusting the camera into the actors’ faces in exaggerated close-ups, it offers a subtle anatomy of motherhood and fatherhood for the 21st-century human. The film is co-produced by the Latvian studio Mistrus Media. From scene to scene, viewers will be reminded of second-hand embarrassment, decisions best made alone (or as a couple), and why sipping Martini after midnight with the biological father, who knows nothing of his paternal “role”, lead to significant, perhaps even Kierkegaardian, realisations.