Mother Vera

Synopsis

A remote Orthodox monastery in Belarus has become a respite for the lost. Mother Vera first entered the community twenty years ago to seek freedom from guilt and a chance for a new beginning. Having stayed longer than she initially planned, Vera has formed a special bond with the horses in the monastery stable, often preferring their company to that of the humans. It is that human-animal bond that will make her realise she has perhaps outgrown her own self-inflicted confines. With striking black and white cinematography and directed by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson, Mother Vera (2024) explores the inner and outer worlds of a woman seeking absolution, and finding herself.