When someone is suffering from a serious illness, focus naturally centres on their welfare and wellbeing. They become the centre of attention for their friends and family, whose trajectories shift to orbit around them. It’s easy to forget that those people dedicating their lives to caring for them can be equally traumatised, often suffering in silence. This act of love takes a huge toll on mental and even physical health.
When your child is ill you will do anything to make them better. Spend every moment by their side and put your life on hold to provide them with everything they need. In Long, Live, Love, the new documentary from Sine Skibsholt, we follow the strong-willed Rosemarie who has survived cancer twice. The 15-year-old just wants to get on with her life and enjoy her teenage years. Her mother, on the other hand, is struggling to move on.
Long, Live, Love is a warm portrait of the complexities of mother-daughter love. Whilst Rosemarie just gets stronger and more independent as she recuperates, her mother seems to sink into herself. After spending every second by her side through her illness, she seems to disappear into a void; hardly getting out of bed on a bad day. Skibsholt follows the pair as Rosemarie tries to reconcile her mother’s reaction to her recovery. Long, Live, Love is an intimate film about an unbreakable bond.
Long, Live, Love screens at IDFA.
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