My Mothers Farm

Tale Kalna is a magnificent woman: hardworking, clever, strong and with a great sense for human relationships. In another life, Tale Kalna might have made it to the presidency of Latvia, but reality has made her a farmer with a small parcel of land, a couple of cows and an unflagging work ethic. Her daughter is Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen, also the director of this affectionate film. A documentary that doesn't only focus on Tale Kalna's personal life, but connects that life to the recent history of Latvia, a new member of the European Union. In an eclectic collage of audio and visual fragments, we see all the important moments pass by. The voice-over tells us how the once wealthy country of Latvia experienced great poverty in the post-war years as part of the Soviet Union. We witness how Tale was a cog in the toilsome Communist bureaucratic machine back then. She found a kindred spirit in Mikhail Gorbachev, and with him in power, independent farms returned to the Latvian landscape. Tale and her second husband left the city in 1991 to start a modest farm. From that moment on, Jacobsen began filming her mother and became the chronicler of a harsh farming existence.