“My mother is missing”. Dealing with dementia and loss through film

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Braithwaite, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6424-8919, 2025. “My mother is missing”. Dealing with dementia and loss through film. In: Poetics of (self)extinction: loss and disappearance from the perspective of the medical humanities, Jornadas HEAL, University of Oviedo, Spain, 08-09 April 2025.

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Abstract

In the summer of 2023, I made an auto-ethnographic documentary film with my mother about the impact that dementia was having on her, and on her relationship with me as a daughter, and only familial carer. The film was shot in the family house in London over a three-week period, it captured my mother at home and us in conversation trying to piece together fragments of memories, and documented moments of laughter, anxiety, fear and desperation. As a daughter and researcher, the film was initially a personal attempt to reconnect with my mother and record moments in time together before the dementia destroyed those remaining memories. As the filming and editing evolved the film became a powerful means to communicate the everyday realities of dementia for my mother and for me as the daughter/carer. While the impacts of dementia are well documented, an ethnographic film brings the opportunity to inject more humanity into the discourse. Following a short extract from the film, the paper will discuss the ethics of making such a personal film and will explore the significance of film in creating a both private and public presentation of the disappearance of self.

Item Type:	Conference contribution
Creators:	Braithwaite, N.
Date:	April 2025
Identifiers:	Number Type 2434095 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham School of Art & Design
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	09 May 2025 09:05
Last Modified:	09 May 2025 09:07
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53567