A special screening of the Nepali documentary "Before You Were My Mother" as part of our new "SAI Screenings" series on Saturday, April 6 (3:30 pm).

About the film
Born and brought up in Manipur and currently living in New York, Ibemhal (59) left her childhood home in Manipur and moved to Nepal after her marriage. Ibemhal’s whole life has been dedicated to raising her two daughters while trying to find her own identity in new places. Who is Ibemhal beyond her identity as a mother and a wife? What was her life like in Manipur? 

Prasuna (30), Ibemhal’s eldest daughter longs to understand the person that is her mother. Prasuna’s bond with her mother is shaped by the conflict-ridden socio-political environment in which she was raised, patriarchal expectations of being a woman in a Nepali society and years of living apart. When Ibemhal returns to Nepal to visit Prasuna in 2020, both of them take a trip to Manipur to visit Ibemhal’s mother, Prasuna’s grand mother.

This 73 minutes deeply personal observational documentary explores the relationship between mothers and daughters and unearths layers of their childhood, youth and past traumas. Prasuna tries to come to terms with the differences she has with her mother and seeks a way to define her own life.

About the director

Prasuna is a documentary filmmaker from Kathmandu. She works as a DocLab Coordinator at kimff and is one of the Filmmaker Mentors for the Camera Sika project run by The British Council Nepal. She was also one of the Filmmaker Fellows of One World Media’s Global Short Doc Forum 2021. Her documentary ‘Dolpa Diary’ (2019) was screened at many film festivals in and outside of Nepal. The documentary was awarded in the category of Best Adventure Film at kimff 2018 and Best Woman Filmmaker at Human Rights International Film Festival (HRIFF) 2019. Prasuna’s work broadly concerns collective memory and an in-depth account of personal experiences.