UMBILICAL
DIRECTED BY ELPIDA STATHATOU
UK, GREECE // 2020
13 MINS
The story of a young woman's struggle to separate from her religious upbringing. As she battles her traumatic past she discovers exactly how far she will go to reconcile her internalised doubts.
Reflective Encounters
“In Umbilical, Elpida Stathatou expunges the demons of her strict religious upbringing through two tense dialogues. The first is invisible. While a young woman played by Stathatou tries to make out with a handsome boyfriend, the phone rings incessantly. A shot down the other end of the phone, of wrinkled hands stubbing out a cigarette, tells us that mother is calling. Stathatou rushes over, but it’s just as she feared: Her strict Christian mother (Themis Bazaka channeling Gena Rowlands) believes her daughter is under a spell. On and off the phone with an unseen religious leader, she believes that Stathatou needs to perform a humiliating ritual in order to avoid disaster.
This episode is captured through tactile close ups of hands at work and clothes as they wrap and conceal a person. Stathatou lingers on the juice dripping out of an orange, and on her mother’s pet bird, often eschewing the detail of faces for the body itself. Meanwhile, the sounds of a kettle, of chairs scraping against the floor, of a lighter flicking, are high in the mix to evoke Stathatou’s own sense-memory. As Stathatou’s encounter with her mother continues, Umbilical reveals how abusers can use one trauma to pile on more and more pain. ”
— Ben Flanagan
Filmmaker Q&A
A Q&A with filmmakers from the Rituals programme at Encounters Film Festival 2021.
Filmmakers - Elpida Stathatou (Umbilical), Suzannah Mirghani (Al Sit) and Pom Bunsermvicha (Lemongrass Girl)
Hosted by Ren Scateni, Head of Programme.
Director’s Statement
Umbilical It’s a very personal story that I’ve been developing for years about a young woman's struggle to separate from her religious and superstitious upbringing. The film examines issues such as religion, fanaticism and emotional abuse.
One of the main reasons I wanted to share this story is to depict the emotional abuse that is secretly taking place in abusive families, which might not be visible at first but creates very deep scars. This particular abuse was happening through the false veil of religion and care in multiple levels.
The mother is the victim of an abuser that used religion to brainwash and manipulate her in order to create fanaticism and take financial advantage of the family. As always abuse creates a domino effect, so automatically a mother-daughter relationship becomes abusive and suffocating for the daughter who tries to escape her own demons. T
his film was my opportunity to show a form of human captivity through my own lens, a captivity that starts with the mind. I believe that when you share a truly personal story, it automatically becomes universal and I hope it will raise awareness on emotional abuse and inspire other people to raise their voices.
Elpida Stathatou is an actress from Greece. She is known for her one woman play on eating disorders called Stegosaurus. In 2019 she acted, wrote and produced her first short film, Omfalios (Umbilical).
She is also the co-founder of the non profit organization BTTL supporting female directors.