Antenna Film Festival: Mother Vera review

February 6, 2025

Addy Fong reviews Mother Vera at Antenna Film Festival:

The sound of footsteps resonate in an empty Belarus monastery as we follow a black silhouetted figure pass by, slowing engulfing the screen. Showcased in contrasts of black and white Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson’s Mother Vera is an observational documentary that paints the portrait of Mother Vera, a young Orthodox nun’s story and struggle with her faith, her future and her identity.

Inspired by Alys Tomlinson’s photography which explores themes of environment, belonging and identity, Mother Vera contrasts religious life and paints monastery as a refuge to the harsh reality of life in the real world, the cold winter, the harsh winds. Composed of observational shots composed in wide, the camera sits quiet, observant, voyeuristic and still allowing life to pass by and dance in frame.

Cécile Embleton’s cinematography is bold painting with shadow and light, forcing audiences to focus on composition and frame. We are forced to focus on sound design and sometimes bare composition and slow pace of the film forces us to linger in self reflection and existential discomfort. Perhaps a struggle audiences may have is in the slow pace of the film itself, an admission is this restlessness I felt whilst watching.

As confronting as the embrace of slow cinema feels in a fast paced world, the approach to Mother Vera as a moving photographic image forces us to reset and reflect on our own selves as much of art does in painting this picture of who we are in society.

‘I didn’t want to become a nun’ Vera states, as the film begins to pull back the misassumptions of the religiously devout and faithful. There isn’t this zealousness in working for one’s righteousness in ritual through prayer, hymns and bible readings, in Vera’s attempts to draw near to God. Instead we uncover this internal guilt Vera feels about her past and her use of religion as refuge and comfort. For her, religion and routine is predictable and safe.

Mother Vera explores religion’s role in liberating one’s past self and this feeling of safety in knowing God personally, something that Vera trusts through the statement, ‘Freedom is when God lives inside you.’ As someone who also shares a similar faith, there is this sadness felt in watching Vera’s search for freedom and personal struggle, rooted in this guilt of her past in her statement, ‘I must be from hell’. Despite her devout religious practice and ritualistic obedience to God as an Orthodox nun, her guilt still haunts her unable to know and accept the freedom and forgiveness she has in Christ. This being said, forgiveness of one’s self is always hard to accept especially when we’ve caused harm on others Vera holds this feeling of remorse throughout. Like the contrasts of black and white, life showcases these grey areas that speak of this moral compass that we, although uncertain, need to face. Comfort can be found in this struggle, it humanises nun hood, there isn’t this sense of religious perfection and moral self righteousness we might assume in the religiously devout, instead Embleton and Tomlinson beautifully capture the humanness of an individual struggling in a search for answers in the cinematographically beautiful Mother Vera.

Antenna Documentary Film Festival runs in Sydney from 6th-16th February 2025.

Mother Vera plays Sunday 9th Feb 4:00pm at Dendy Newtown – Cinema #3 and Saturday 15th February 4:30pm at Dendy Newtown – Cinema #3. For tickets and info, go here.

Review by Addy Fong.