MOTHERBOARD
a film by Victoria Mapplebeck
“A candid, unsentimental, perceptive and profoundly moving portrait of the highs and lows of motherhood.”
“‘Tender, intimate, funny and entirely absorbing”
“Keeps you watching spellbound”
“It is something of a miracle”
Motherboard is a smartphone feature exploring motherhood, filmed over 20 years by BAFTA award-winning director Victoria Mapplebeck. Motherboard charts the joy, pain and comedy of raising a child alone. It’s a celebration of messy lives and proof that epic journeys can begin and end at home.
Over 20 years, I recorded hundreds of hours of footage, capturing each twist and turn in Jim’s life, from the thumbs-up he gave me during my first scan, to his first day at college. I first began documenting our lives with my old DVCAM before shooting almost daily on five generations of smartphones, from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 15.
Motherboard is a complex, personal and unsentimental portrait of a mother-son relationship from birth to adulthood, exploring the ways in which myself and my son Jim, navigate two generations of absent fathers and my breast cancer diagnosis when Jim was just 13.
Many women are raising children alone, by choice or by circumstance. Motherhood as a story, is so infrequently told, because the world tells us that what mothers do is unremarkable and unimportant. MOTHERBOARD is a celebration of solo motherhood and proof that epic journeys can begin and end at home.
Motherboard is shot on small cameras in small spaces, but it explores big, relatable stories with a huge reach. It’s the antidote to the judgmental and unrealistic expectations we have about motherhood, creating an honest, funny and relatable film for any mother who has wept tears of both joy and frustration.
Motherboard is made by First Person Films in partnership with OKRE and Autlook Filmsales. It’s filmed, directed and edited by Victoria Mapplebeck and executive produced by Debbie Manners. Motherboard will be released in cinemas in 2025.
