The best thing I could ask for is to have people leave the theater going, "I just don't know what to think." Nicolas Pesce (Director)
In their secluded farmhouse, a mother, formerly a surgeon in Portugal, teaches her daughter Francisca about anatomy, so that she'll understand death and won't be fazed by it. One afternoon, a mysterious visitor shatters the idyll of Francisca's family life, deeply traumatizing the young girl, but also awakening her curiosity. Though she clings to her increasingly reticent father, Francisca's loneliness and her scarred psyche converge years later, when her longing to connect with the world around her takes on a distinctly dark form. Shot in crisp black and white, the haunting and at times disturbing visual compositions of The Eyes of My Mother evoke its protagonist's isolation and illuminate her deeply unbalanced worldview. Genre-inflected, but so strikingly unique as to defy categorization, writer/director Nicolas Pesce's assured feature debut allows us only an elliptical presence in Francisca's world, guiding our imagination to follow her into peculiar, mysterious places.
*Viewer discretion advised.
2016 SUNDANCE, MUNICH, SYDNEY, LONDON
New York University's Tisch School of the Arts graduate Nicolas Pesce resides in Brooklyn. Pesce has directed music videos of Tei Shi, and done live video work for many artists including Snoop Dogg and The Black Keys. The Eyes of My Mother (2016) is his directorial debut feature film.
