Motherhood | |
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Promotional poster
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Directed by | Katherine Dieckmann |
Produced by |
Christine Vachon Pamela Koffler Jana Edelbaum Rachel Cohen |
Written by | Katherine Dieckmann |
Starring |
Uma Thurman Minnie Driver Anthony Edwards |
Music by | Joe Henry |
Cinematography | Nancy Schreiber |
Edited by | Michael R. Miller |
Production
company |
iDeal Partners Film Fund
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Distributed by | Freestyle Releasing |
Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $10 million |
Box office | $726,354 |
Motherhood is a 2009 independent comedy-drama film written and directed by Katherine Dieckmann and starring Uma Thurman.
In New York's West Village, a mother's (Uma Thurman) dilemmas of marriage, work, and self are shown in the trials and tribulations of one pivotal day.
Motherhood and Arlen Faber (later renamed The Answer Man) were a pair of films independently financed and produced by the New York City-based iDeal Partners Film Fund.
The two films were part of a coordinated effort by iDeal Partners to reduce the risk in investing in film production during the late-2000s recession; they were pre-sold to foreign distributors, cast with "commercially-tested actors" and took advantage of U.S. state tax incentives that encouraged film production. Both also premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. As of January 2009, Jana Edelbaum, co-founder of iDeal Partners, was predicting "at least a 15 percent return for her investors and – if something big happens with Motherhood or Arlen Faber – as much as 40 percent."
Men can write great women’s movies, but I don’t think a man could write this movie. I don’t think any man can understand what it’s like to face the day to day the way a woman can, what it means for a woman to be compromised by domesticity.
The writer/director's "real life was the inspiration for the film"; Dieckmann's home consists of two rent-stabilized apartments on the same floor of a West Village building, with one apartment for the bedrooms, and the other containing a kitchen, office and living room. In the film; Thurman's character "lives in [literally the] same building, in a bisected apartment." Filming took place in New York City starting in May 2008 and lasting about 25 days.
Motherhood received a limited North American release in October 2009 by Freestyle Releasing.