Your Mum and Dad

synopsis

After 17 years of documenting one man's struggle to heal from a generational wound, Klaartje Quirijns turns the camera on herself to reveal her own family's devastating trauma. Kirkland Vaughans—one the few African-American Freudian therapists in the United States—guides us through the complex workings of the mind, showing how easily we can be "colonised" by the behaviour of our parents. But in explaining these recurring patterns, he can't help but be drawn into exploring his own painful past as well. Using a wealth of home movies and archival images as well as taped therapy sessions—YOUR MUM AND DAD: A DEVASTATING TRUTH explores recurring behavioural themes and raises individual cases into a universal pattern of experience. These stories enter the minds of the viewers and provide a mirror with which they can see the pain and triumphs of their own lives.