M is for Mothers

…and babies make four! Brazilian couple Melanie and Marcela turn to IVF to conceive and are ecstatic to learn that Melanie is carrying twins. Co-producer of A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here (Frameline46) and Flesh (Frameline44), director Lívia Perez follows Melanie and Marcela as they set off on a grand, lifetime adventure. Despite their happiness, each woman has her own worries.

Calm and cheerful in her pregnancy, Melanie nevertheless frets over the prospect of giving birth and especially the possibility of a caesarean section. Marcela lays her head on Melanie’s stomach singing and talking to the babies but wonders if they won’t be as bonded to her since she is not the one carrying them. She faces that fear head on, taking hormones to spur lactation so that she, too, can nurse the infants and forge her own physical connection to them. The women’s love and devotion to each other and their children imbues every frame of this warm-hearted documentary that captures their journey to motherhood.

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