Olmo and the Seagull

Petra Costa and Lea Glob's 2015 film follows a theatre actress obliged to leave the stage because of her pregnancy. Olivia stays at home for nine months, and the tension between being unable to act and becoming a mother fills the whole film. The film sits between documentary and fiction. Some scenes were recorded and some restaged, and which is which is deliberately unclear; while playing her own life, how much she is performing is argued inside the narrative. The directors do not switch off the camera or cut the arguments between the couple. Olivia's loss of control over her own body is the real subject, and the narrative does not present it as a celebration. Who it's for: those who like hybrid documentary and narratives about motherhood. Who it's not for: viewers sensitive to documentary ethics; the line between record and staging is openly blurred.