Mother Just a Smile

Synopsis

A deceased mother is not dead; she lives in the blowing wind, in the rising tide of a full moon night. In order to grieve and properly say goodbye to her love ones, Isabel Cardoso 71, decides to share with her late mother, deceased over 30 years earlier, certain key moments of her life. Isabel and her late mother spent most of their time working in the plantations in Sao Tome during the colonial time and subsequently in various cleaning and catering services once in Portugal. They never really have a moment for themselves. This is the odyssey of a black woman and her mother transcending space, time and dimension while highlighting black womanhood and struggle in Portugal.

Biofilmographie

Cyrielle Raingou is a Cameroonian filmmaker passionate
about African cultural identity, its promotion on an
international scale and the economic interest it raises. She
very often uses legends, metaphor, the symbolism of animals
to unearth the complexity and mystery within human. She is
currently working on her first feature length documentary “Le
Spectre de Boko Haram”, focused on the life in a war zone
from children perspective. She holds master’s degrees in law
and in documentary film directing.
Cyrielle Raingou participated in the “Connexions citoyennes”
project launched by CFI, the French Media Cooperation
Agency across France, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Benin, in 2016. She gained that recognition through her Limegbie (the
woman eye) project , which trains rural women to make short
documentaries (03min) on their life and their civic
engagement. She is one of the 2018 Mandela Washington
Fellows alumni. As part of that program, she studied civic
leadership at Drexel University in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania
State); and shot in Austin (Texas) her short film “Requiem
Prologue”, premiered at Luxor African Film Festival 2019. She
created a production company, RaingouFilms in 2014. She
has directed short films such as “Challenge”, “Les voisins”,
“Requiem prologue”, “the lamb”, “Parallèle” or “Mother just a
smile”.