CHAPTER 3: MOTHERPLANT

↑ Rory Pilgrim - The Undercurrent

I really wanna have a similar feeling as with this sequence.
Focussing on the interiors between different places, maybe in a split screen creating similarities and differences.

Small - hard shelled creatures
Of potential
we were neither plant yet - nor anymore

my tongue
It always struggled, while my ears always remember her,
Learning the birdsongs of her foreign place I grew up here

Here - my motherplant
Always almost not in scarcity
Always almost not a stranger
She tried to never make me feel that way

Herself,
she had as little and as much as everyone around her too.

We braided flowers
to surface the iron curtains,
Behind that concrete walls

On balconies, we sit, and watch
As dreams pass by the window

This peaceful scene and quiet scene slowly ruptures by the sound of western news footage of reporting on the sudden independence of Ukraine and the fall of the soviet union. The images of it appear on a big television in the mothers home.

This scene is framed and explained through a skype conversation between the daughter and her mother. In German, the mother explains the complexity, difficulties and hopes surrounding the times in the 90’s, and how, under this background, she moved away from Ukraine to Germany. As she says how her reality changed with the crossing of the border, the film transitions into the next chapter.

Our homes, creating seat coats
Protecting layers
Protecting us
Even from ourselves

"We had actually quite happy childhoods

innocence


The feeling of not beeing abel to talk about things
The feeling of needing to be part of a system

Something broke then too:
When our childhood broke and we were seeking for new comforts"

Trying to understand the past / childhood / motherland (from afar

I look at my childhood videos...

we grew up so different.. and yet so alike

my tongue
It always struggled, while my ears always remember her,
Learning the birdsongs of her foreign place

Here - my motherplant
Always almost not in scarcity
Always almost not a stranger
She tried to never make me feel that way

Herself,
she had as little and as much as everyone around her too.

Understanding my own childhood was framed through my mum’s

"Break 1:
But somehow these lands coudln’t really sustain us?
Its about disconnection

when did we leave ?

What's that chapter about?

Going deeper...
to how we grew up -
Generally a feeling of nostaligia, innocence but also scarcity - really feeling how they have grown up in lands that couldn't sustain them
..
realizing that they have to go even deeper.. going to Ukraine itself
..
didn't grow up with much things Ukrainian -neither my mum
..
by find ways of coping
with this distance,
I've been trying to look for routes back
in space
and time

My own comentary over the videos of myself

Band 4: 00:53
Kyiv is where I feel most at home
Nikita and me are swimming...
Mum says this is our lake..
It's the lake where my mum grew up aswell.
looking at myself.. I imagine my mum..

The lake later became one of my anchors..
walking around it with my grandma.. the only place that she would still visit.

Band 3: 01:10:30
I love watching myself drinking fanta out of this big bottle.
easy nutrian free sugars of early capatlism
and a big happy smile
I am sure that this didn't help me in the long run, my sugar addiction or my teeth.. but that happy smile on my face is priceless probably,

things my mum never had, and didn't grow up.
she wanted to maybe spil me, maybe give me what she never had.. or give me what I wanted? And which child doesn't want a sugar rush and hypnotising television?

Band 3: 52:30
the way we already played games of war..

Band 4: 33:41 & 47:13
Helping my mum cooking and cleaning the dishes with my mum,
it felt like a game.. hungry to learn.. Later on when I was a teenager, I was gonna cook for my mum, when she came back from work..
same as she, when she was a child..

Band 4: 00:53
window shopping scene
speaks for itself

Band 8: 04:07

I am trying to be a big girl, no sleeping at my mums anymore. The living room, in our tiny apartment became my bed

Band 5: 21:00
we would spend so much time toegther, I learnt so much..
but Russian was still always difficult
Band 7:
cleaning shoes, Mum talks german with me again
felt sometimes like a game, until it became just really reality

Band 8: 15:54

late night, my mum is still sewing a dress for me

Band 8: 35:00

Trying to pronounce "Arbusik"

Band 8: 53:00

dancing with mum

Band 8: 35:00

I loved being on the balcony. balcnoies in general. In Ukraine, they are closed, so it's that beautful place inbetween. It was my favorite to be at my granda's. My lil nook, where I would read, and play and sleep even.

Band 9: 03:44

Balcony scene in rain

Band 8: 53:00

One of the things, that are just absolute nostalgia for me

Band 9: 58:35

Bayerischer Umzug

Band 19: 58:35

Datscha--- I always thought thatwas the words for familiy party.. because that's what we had there.. I was always and still am, so happy to be there

shw would stay up late, to sew me a dress.. so I would look pretty

Here - my motherplant
Always almost not in scarcity
Always almost not a stranger
She tried to never make me feel that way

Band 2: 00:53
This is my mum.. in this video she is pretty much the age that I am now.
Unlike me, she has a daughter of around 2 years old.

01:11:15:00 - 01:12:19:11

Weil als Kind haben mir damals nicht so großartig was mitbekommen. Natürlich was was so alles um uns passiert. Und du hast ja auch keinen Vergleich.
Möglichkeit alle haben mehr oder weniger gleich gleich gut, gleich arm gelebt.

01:11:15:00 - 01:12:19:11

01:13:01:06 - 01:13:03:07
Speaker 3
Wir haben gute Kindheit. Glückliche Kindheit, wir haben draußen gespielt, alle möglichen Spielen waren es draußen. Wir haben mit unseren Decken ein Picknick mehr oder Weniger veranstaltet. Also nicht Picknick, Ende Sinn, sondern auf die Decken draußen im Gras gespielt mit unseren Puppen, Puppen, Häusern, die wir aus den Schuhkartons gebastelt haben, ausgeschnitten haben, die Türen und Fenster. Zum Aufklappen, obwohl der Schuhkarton damals schon zu finden war und so eine große Sache.

things that you won't see in these tapes.. are how my mum worked.. how she went to work, tried to make dinner.. later one when I went to school
.. how later on, when I grew older, I helped with a lot in the household.. made food for not just me but also my mum..
how I worked more jobs..

01:20:50:15 - 01:21:22:15
Speaker 1
Als man nach Hause kam, war meistens ein Zettel von meiner Mama. Ähm ja, die Suppe steht auf dem Herd. Mach bitte auf den kleinen Flamme warm und nun schon 15 Minuten. Versuch bitte das nicht zu kochen oder Kartoffelpüree ist angewinkelt in der Decke, unter den Kissen, in der in den Zimmer gibt es den Kühlschrank, vielleicht noch irgendwas noch dazu also das Beilagen usw Also es gab es dann Anweisungen von Mama, liebevolle Anweisungen, was man dann. Sich essen.

01:21:24:04 - 01:21:28:03
Speaker 3
Machen sollte, weil sie ja auch später gekommen ist Und.

Was ich jetzt natürlich als Mutter sehe. Es war bestimmt auch nicht für sie lustig. War alles das also auch ein selbstständig ja.

We, diaspora, find ways of coping with this distance, we look for routes back.

trying to find a scene outside? idk..

Do I have a picture of our apartment in Ottobrun?

by find ways of coping
with this distance,
I've been trying to look for routes back
in space
and time

Band 3:..

I had a happy childhood..
I was always dancing..
the tv was always on.

Do i have a scene in Ottobrunn?

Band 4: 33:41 & 47:13
Its really sweet and nice seeing myself working in the kitchen, helping with...

01:11:15:00 - 01:12:19:11

Wir sind eigentlich gut gelebt, haben in den Plattenbau, die damals genau meine Eltern eingezogen sind.
Ähm. ich glaub Kurz bevor bevor ich geboren, also mehr oder weniger fast in demselben Jahr oder Jahr davor vielleicht so..
Das war ganz frischen Neubauten.
Wohnungen um den see ... Ja, wie sagt man das? Ähm. Alles neue Häuser, neuer neuer neu Quartalen. Alles und. Aus diese
Seiten War mehr oder weniger gleich gut.

01:13:32:01 - 01:13:34:11
Speaker 1
Verpackungen und solche Sachen waren nicht.
So vielen damals. Das ist in der Zeit tatsächlich eigentlich ein. Lebensmittel Defizit war waren Defizit war haben wir natürlich in ganz jungen Jahren nicht viel davon mitbekommen. Also es war halt ein Haus, nicht so viel, vielleicht auch was Süßigkeiten angeht oder sonst haben und was, aber wir waren nicht am Verhungern und vom allem, wir waren sehr aktive Kinder.

Kind of want a dynamic scene of all these bavarian traditions

maybe some cool magical realist zoom through screen..
to watch the videos
maybe not just my voice over the videos but also my mums.
Maybe also my grandma's?