Birdie

Through the medium of an intimate video diary, Mariana Macháňová captures her family’s grief as her mother passes away. For the director, the camera becomes a tool for both therapy and detachment. She records her wanderings through sterile hospital corridors, taking perhaps her last selfie with her mother at her hospital bedside, and the scattering of her ashes. Coming to terms with the loss also gives rise to reflections on the ethics of such filming. The filmmaker asks herself whether it is acceptable to enter moments of greatest vulnerability with a camera, if the act of filming itself helps to transform fleeting fragments into something lasting and thus to process the mourning. “So I decided I’d heal myself with a film”

• Documentary