In this exploratory California College of the Arts student film, strife between a mother and daughter is expressed in an unusual and sophisticated way. Filmmaker Alejandra Cadena-Perez is interested in dualities—natural versus artificial and isolation versus connection—and by showing such intellectual tensions through two people who are biologically and physically close, she demonstrates how opposites can be, in fact, two sides of the same coin.
Her film explores this rather complex material through dance. Student films at their best are adventuresome, and Her Mother's Daughter delivers on this metric by fusing an underlying narrative structure with a free-flowing art form that is uncommon in film. The quality of filmmaking is very good, but Cadena-Perez's interests clearly run farther and wider than her MFA in film studies.
You can watch the trailer here: Her Mother's Daughter
