Nijole

Nijole

“Antanas Mockus was Mayor of Bogotá, several times Colombian presidential candidate, and voted into the senate in 2018. But this film is not about the politician, but about his 88-year-old mother, the idiosyncratic artist Nijolė Šivickas. She has consistently protected her private life from the public eye, agreeing only reluctantly to media interviews. Even her son knew almost nothing about her Lithuanian childhood. In her artistic practice, but also emotionally, she had turned her back on her homeland.Now Nijolė has been invited to give a workshop on the occasion of a great retrospective in Vilnius. The film follows her and Antanas on this journey. It’s basically a son’s look at a mother whose independence and critical social spirit were his constant inspiration. Sandro Bozzolo and his team approach their protagonists with restraint, adapt the montage to their rhythm and focus on the rooms of their creative work, on Nijolė’s meetings with Antanas and their journey home together, which moves both deeply. The son takes his mother by the hand, as does this story of an outer and inner journey with the audience. Which events continue to shape one’s life and which had better be forgotten?”

— Annina Wettstein

Un’artista e un’intera esistenza vissuta lontano dalla sua terra natale. Lo sguardo di un figlio, che dopo quarant’anni ritorna a interpretare l’opera della madre. Il racconto silenzioso di una grande pianura, un luogo d’infanzia che nasconde un dolore.

Nijolė racconta il viaggio verso le origini di Nijolė Šivickas e Antanas Mockus, la forza sotterranea di una necessità creativa che dalle distese baltiche ha contribuito a riscrivere la storia colombiana. Un ritratto intimo di una donna straordinaria attraverso gli occhi della sua miglior opera d’arte: suo figlio.