top of page
Reviews
1. A letter to humanity, Film Review - Letter to my mother
Written by Eduardo Kaneco, The film critic and the founder of the Portuguese magazine, Leitura Filmica.
Click here to read the review in Portuguese
​
​
"A film that everyone needs to see and feel!"
- Julio A. Torres
"A documentary with a bold direction and impressive experimental format."
- Kiarash Motarjemi
"Powerful visuals that would often leave me uncomfortable but so befitting of what is being discussed."
- Cleola Eayrs
"With the film Letter to my mother, filmmaker Amin*a Maher uses an inventive style to create a powerful tool to heal himself and at the same time to heal all the victims of sexual abuse."
- Eduardo Kaneco
"One of the best documentaries and shorts that I have wacthed so far!"
- Saghar Motarjemi
Letter to my mother, Winner of the Best Documentary Short Award at the Luminous Frames Festival.
​
https://www.luminousframes.org/short-film-review-letter-to-my-mother
- Luminous Frames Magazine, Film review Letter to my mother
​
​
2. 14th Glasgow Short, (BAFTA Qualifying Festival) Review by Jessica McGoff
"Letter to My Mother is a deeply personal exploration of gender identity and childhood trauma.
In revisiting the familiar image of herself in Ten, Maher presents a dual reckoning with the established narratives of both personal memory and cinematic history. She also introduces her own radical aesthetic: bold images of a distinct punk sensibility contrasted with a softer, affective focus on intimate materials such as skin and hair.
The film plays with the notion of authority, presenting disparate sources of testimony that are fraught with contradictions. However, the epistolary nature of the film ensures that Maher’s is the ultimate authorial voice: she is the writer of her own story. In Ten, Maher stated “I am only a child,
I cannot belong to myself.” Letter to My Mother suggests that perhaps she now does."
​
3. 36th Kasseler Dokfest, Review
"A film that addresses and a film that shows a processing through media: a fearless and strong autobiographical examination. LETTER TO MY MOTHER chooses a radically intimate perspective.
It is an examination that touches upon the center of the pain and that dares to look precisely. It finds exact scenes for despair and cruelty and searches openly for ways of coping."
​
4. 35th Lovers Film Festival
"A heartfelt letter to tell the mother the most painful of secrets. Amina, who in 2002 was the small protagonist of Ten by Kiarostami is now a transgender director who tries to make her voice heard, understood, and be understood."
​
5. Political Body, Essays & Interviews, 22nd Belo Horizonte Film Festival
"In Letter to my mother (2019), Iranian Amina Maher conceives a complex montage assembling autobiographical report, epistolary language, archives and performance. The filmmaker goes through archives of her own therapy sessions and images from Ten (2002), by Abbas Kiarostami, in which she participated when she was a child, in search of the creation of an autonomous body, one not defined by abuse. One that is free from restraint."
​
6. Letter to My Mother, Review by Cinematic Perception, Italy
Link: http://www.cinematicperception.com/category/uncategorized/
bottom of page