A NOTE FROM US

The Story of Mothers & Daughters began as a dream five years before it made it to TV. The dream was to make an honest film that explored the mother-daughter bond – a film with ordinary women starring as the storytellers – a film so true that every person who saw it would say, "This is my story."

But how to do that? For two years we asked ourselves how we could make a single, coherent movie out of this vast, diverse, yet crucial human relationship. Eventually we realized that what every individual mother-daughter relationship shares with all others is the path of the human life cycle, the journey from cradle to grave.

This became our central theme – how the mother-daughter relationship changes over the course of our lives, from birth to growing up and leaving home, and on to the passing of one generation and the beginning of the next. Through this understanding, the stories of individual women and girls come together to reveal the universal truth of all our lives.

To tell this important story we interviewed over 500 women. We thank them for showing us how to make this film.

The Story of Mothers & Daughters aired as a one hour television documentary, first on ABC and then on PBS. But this is the full length version, as we originally intended it to be seen.

FILM SYNOPSIS

From cradle to grave, the epic story of the mother-daughter bond is told in intimate detail, without any narration.  Fifty women, during pivotal life-moments, give brutally honest self-portraits revealing a universal portrait of this core human relationship.

The documentary has five chapters, each one a stage in the cycle of life: Birth, Growing Up, Separation, Woman to Woman, and Death/Renewal.  Through this structure, the film weaves a repeating pattern of comings together and drawings apart: the union of pregnancy followed by the separation of birth, the sweet closeness of childhood, then the stormy estrangement of adolescence, the reconciliation of adulthood before the loss to death.  And finally, the daughter becoming a mother, beginning the whole cycle anew.

With it's wide diversity of race, class, and emotion, The Story of Mothers & Daughters goes beyond portraying individual relationships.  This film reveals the mother-daughter relationship as it endures and changes over a lifetime.

Shot in exquisite 16mm film by veteran verité cinematographer Joan Churchill, the documentary includes an original score by Academy Award winner Todd Boekelheide and was produced by Judith Leonard (Academy Award nominated documentarian), Catherine Ryan (Oscar short list nominee), and Gary Weimberg (two time Emmy Award winner).   

Interested in learning about our other films?
Go to www.lunaproductions.com

REVIEWS

"A miraculous, perfect little film ... you owe it to yourself to see it ... bold, even audacious ... finds a universal core at the center of all the unique stories told by all its distinctive women"

New York Daily News
Eric Mink

"Lovely... brims with insights, emotion, and honest tears.... try not to miss 'Mothers & Daughters'... television at its best."

Los Angeles Times
Howard Rosenberg

"A marvelously photographed pastiche of feelings and confessions."

New York Post
Michele Greppi

"Poignant and often painful... refreshingly free of hallmark moments... an early Mother's Day gift that might actually be remembered next year."

US New & World Report
Betsy Streisand

"Skillfully produced and directed... It's a fast trip through stages in a relationship fraught with exhilerating highs and devastating lows. But it's one whose images and impact stay with you."

San Diego Union-Tribune
Jane Clifford

"You will likely see no documentary anytime soon that will touch you as will The Story of Mothers & Daughters... Woman or girl, man or boy, you won't walk away unchanged by this hour."

Times Union
Kirk Nicewonger

"[A] pleasant suprise... a fair measure of sour with the sweet... memorable real-life moments."

People Magazine
Terry Kelleher

"Distinctive... a tale that many moms and daughters – and fathers and sons – will enjoy."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
John Levesque

"A superbly crafted production worthy of big screen play."

Richmond Times-Dispatch
Katherine Phillips