Mamma Gogo

Director's Statement

The film is based on two very personal aspects of my life: my mother’s Alzheimer’s Disease and my own previous struggles with my financial problems. While writing the script I studied the financial collapse in Iceland using my own experiences and had the idea of intertwining them with the process of my dealing with mothers’ illness. I’m often asked whether it is difficult emotionally to use elements from my own life in a film. But I have used my life as an inspiration before, namely in “Movie Days” which was based on my childhood in Reykjavik back in the 60s. You have the feeling that at least you know your life well and there is some truth in it that shines through in a film and that the audience can recognize. My father died when I was a young boy. But my mother is still alive (even though she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 12 years ago) and we have always had a very close relationship; she has been an important and positive part of my life and has shaped the way I am today. And then suddenly, with this disease, her characteristics began to change and I started seeing an alien person before me. I have seen films dealing with Alzheimer’s that are very bleak. I wanted to do this film differently and try to see the humour in my own situation; hence, a comedy about filmmaking and Alzheimer’s. In essence, the film can be described as an elegy to my mother.