BEYOND MOTHER LOVE (film)
Exploring ‘Non-persons’ as icons of a Three-Personned God
(in response to heretical anthropologies)
Beyond Mother Love is a forthcoming creative documentary film and qualitative research project in partnership with Vue Cinemas and King’s College London
About the film
Those with neurodivergent conditions, such as autism, learning disabilities, dementia, or brain injuries, often have the validity of their personhood questioned within academic discourse. In everyday life, while they may be treated kindly, differences in how they relate and communicate often limit people’s imagination, preventing them from being seen as potential friends.
Beyond Mother Love follows artist and mother Jen on her quest to discover the value of her disabled son beyond his value to her. The film tells the stories of unlikely friendships she uncovers between people with and without neurodivergent conditions, showing how these friendships work even when one person may not be able to speak or hold shared memories.
Throughout the journey, the film cuts to a series of performance artworks created collaboratively with neurodivergent artists. These often humorous and playful moments, threaded through the narrative, introduce a metaphysical dimension to the film’s quest—and open space for neurotypical people to ask: What do neurodivergent people reveal about ourselves that we cannot see in each other? This question becomes even more crucial in the face of rising AI and the close of the age of human intelligence, within which being human at all may be considered 'disabled'.
Through its aesthetic qualities and humor, the film moves audiences beyond the dry moral obligation towards disabled people, cultivating a sense of excitement for the privilege and thrill of friendship with those living at the extremes of the human condition.
Jen’s journey culminates in an answer to her question from an unlikely source—a girl diagnosed with such profound disabilities that she did not survive her own birth. While her mother was never able to discover what might exist for her child beyond motherly love in this world, what she did discover in the labour ward offers Jen an answer to her ultimate fear: when she is no longer here to love Tate, whose loved one will he be?
We are proud to collaborate with and consult neurodivergent artists in every aspect of the film’s development and production, adhering to the principles of "Nothing About Us Without Us." For more on our creative development work, visit www.ferproduction.com/improv-our-lives.
Accompanying Qualitative Research Study
Call for Funding
The film and research study can only be completed with significant financial backing.
To support Beyond Mother Love please contact project director, Jen Logan at hello@beyondmotherlove.com