Mum & Me - My story of Alzheimers
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Film-maker Sue Bourne has a string of successful documentaries to her name, most recently Cutting Edge's My Street, Wedding Days and the Emmy-nominated The Falling Man.
With Mum & Me, Sue has turned the cameras on her own family to produce a searing, honest, funny, tragic, yet ultimately uplifting, documentary.
Filmed over three years with her teenage daughter, Holly, Mum & Me is the story of how Sue and her family have fumbled along trying to come to terms with her mother's Alzheimer's.
"I thought long and hard about whether to make this film and expose myself, my mother and my daughter," says Sue.
"But I realised there was something special about mum and her Alzheimer's, because she's taught us to laugh in the face of adversity. She refuses to be miserable or self pitying and through it all has retained her sense of humour.
"Everything I'd seen about Alzheimer's was devastatingly miserable, so I wanted this film to show that, in spite of Alzheimer's, you can still laugh together and have fun."
Sue's widowed mother, Ethel, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's six years ago and now lives in a nursing home in Ayr, Scotland. Once a month, Sue makes the 800-mile round trip from London to visit her – sometimes with her daughter, Holly.
This film tells the story of those visits, the conversations, the daily phone calls and the little holidays the three of them have had.
This episode is on BBC ONE, Tuesday 20 May 2008 @ 10.35-11.35pm.
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