Motherboard

Motherboard is a video diary from BAFTA-winner Victoria Mapplebeck spanning twenty years following the upbringing of her son Jim.

Motherboard was screened as part of the 2024 Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) programme.

A video diary from BAFTA-winner Victoria Mapplebeck, functioning as both a self-portrait and a time capsule of her son’s childhood, this reflective and honest documentary presents the strongest bond between mother and son.

Twenty years ago, struggling financially and single, Victoria Mapplebeck discovered that she was pregnant. Leaving her career in TV, she uses a camera and begins filming her experience. Nine months later, Jim was born.

Mapplebeck invites us as an audience into the family, giving us access and insight into deeply personal areas. No more apparent is this evidenced than at Jim’s birth. With his father out of the country, Mapplebeck begins filming moments after giving birth, and audiences get invited to her bedside, and for the first time, we see Jim in this world.

With his eyes taking in all they can see, we hear off-screen a new sound: “Good morning, Jim, I’m your grandma.” As Mapplebeck zooms out, we, too, meet Jim’s grandma. Within its first five minutes, this sequence transforms us from viewers to active engagers in her story. Mapplebeck is a single first-time mother, but we are all on this journey together.

As the film continues, endearing bonding moments between the pair in their London flat shape Jim’s formative years with playing, dancing and singing. However, what stands out is its relationship with time. As Jim ages, Mapplebeck reflects on his upbringing through pieces to her phone camera, or voice messages with her mother, exploring how she wishes she would’ve known that certain milestones would’ve been their last together so that she could’ve treasured them.

Similarly, the progression of time is shown in the way Mapplebeck constructs the documentary. Beginning the project in 2004, the film is originally filmed using a traditional camera, before the inception of a video camera integrated into a smart phone. Whilst it is never explicit in telling audiences which phone or camera was used when, the familiarity of smartphones, iMessages and voice notes is a subconscious nod to the technological improvements in the two decades, and adds to the transformation of the film into a time capsule.

Through montage we see the entropy of life transformed into memory vignettes — a moving-image photo album giving motion to all the stills and stories attached to them. Clips of holidays, activities and childish joy flicker by, as though we’re recounting his life, and wishfully longing for it to slow so we can enjoy the moments of his new discoveries. The heartache of a mother preserving her son’s childhood is raw and empathetically relatable.

There’s a beauty in the vulnerability of Mapplebeck’s candidness to her mother about how she feels about Jim and her mothering technique that feels similar to Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell (2012), with both documentaries becoming an avenue for the filmmakers to express their anxieties, as well as explore their relationship as part of a family unit.

However, life isn’t a series of nostalgic memories. It’s messy, complicated and challenging. Thankfully, this is something that Mapplebeck doesn’t shy away from, especially when Jim, aged 13, begins asking questions about his dad. Jim’s maturity in these moments is a testament to how he was raised and reflects the man he’s grown to become. However, the burdens Jim takes on are evident, especially as days before meeting his dad for the first time, his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer.

Victoria Mapplebeck has explored Jim’s search for his dad previously in her BAFTA-winning short film, Missed Call (2018) as well as covering the origins of Jim’s birth in 160 Characters (2015), which suggests that Mapplebeck’s magnum opus has always been Motherboard — a culmination of work, years, and dedication resulting in its brilliance.

Continuously filming using home footage and audio messages for twenty years is arduous, and is likely to raise questions with audiences about the ethics of distilling a young adult’s life to a documentary; still, the personable feel created is unlike anything else, as though replicating the ephemera of a VHS tape. Motherboard is an utterly remarkable achievement. Uncomfortable, vulnerable, and emotive, Motherboard accentuates the lengths a mother will go to for their child, and all the hardships that get in the way.

Motherboard had its world premiere at CPH:DOX on 18 March as part of the festival’s main Dox:Award competition.