El Gouna Film Profile – ‘Scary Mother’ (Sashishi Deda)

CAIRO – 18 September 2017: Georgian Director Ana Urushadze’s debut film, “Scary Mother,” (Sashishi Deda) shows the desperation of escaping a mediocre life, and what following one’s passions might entail of sacrifices.


Poster via IMDB

In an apartment block in Georgia’s capital, lives Manana (Nato Murvanidze), a 50-year-old wife and mother tired of her drab life. She wants nothing more than to be an accomplished writer, and a mid-life crisis leads her to begin working on a scandalous novel, filled with graphic sex scenes.

Her husband is only barely supportive of her ambitions, yet Nukri (Ramaz Ioseliani), a stationary store owner, takes a liking to her work and becomes her unofficial editor. She even beings anonymously sharing excerpts of her work with her father, an editor, who claims he has never read anything so graphic.

As she attempts to balance her duties as a housewife and secret life as an author, Manana’s grip on reality begins to slip, leading down a nightmarish road of uncertainty as her obsessive needs to write begin to unravel her fragile mental health.

“Scary Mother” won the Best First Feature and the Youth Jury Award at the Locarno International Film Festival. It premiered in Switzerland on Aug. 3.