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Year of production : 2012

Director(s) : Sarah JONES
Writer(s) : Sarah JONES
Producer(s) : Jean MEERAN (TEAM TARBABY)

Umbilical Cords is a ‘no-holds barred’ documentary exploring love and conflict between mothers and daughters.

Three young women live together in Cape Town, South Africa, with mothers from Argentina, Lesotho and Indonesia.

Devoutly Christian Tsepiso can no longer protect her daughter Zanele from the influences of the outside world. Mayra, daughter of an Argentinean immigrant to Johannesburg, can’t forgive her mother Anna-Maria for her broken childhood. Hilary escaped ethnic persecution in Indonesia, and now faces her worst nightmare as her daughter Sarah falls in love with a South African man with dark skin.

Living thousands of miles apart, the women stay in touch over the phone. Yet beneath the daily phone calls, lie years of conflict over religion, race, and belonging. Stepping into womanhood, a battle over identity threatens this ultimate bond. Each mother/daughter pair becomes locked in a dance around how much each woman is willing to see the other as a separate, and vulnerable, human being.

Umbilical Cords offers an intimate, unflinching exploration of what often remains unsaid between mothers and daughters, until they are forced to confront the woman at the other end of the phone.