Our relationships with our mothers are usually a charged dynamic, beginning the moment we’re born. The mother-daughter variety can be particularly complex, especially if your single mom is mentally unstable and threatens to kill when you’re 19 years old, as is the case for filmmaker Tara Wray.

Near the beginning of Wray’s debut feature, Manhattan, Kansas, she notes, “My mother was my entire life... she and I were so close it was difficult to tell where one of us ended and the other began. But we were always running from her demons, both real and imagined. All the while it was my job to love and protect her as much as I could, but it was never enough.” After years of estrangement, Manhattan, Kansas charts the return of Wray, camera in hand, as she struggles to understand who her mother is and was, and to consider the possibility of connecting with her anew, on different terms.

Preceded by:

Emma follows Emma Carney through her turbulent first year of high school in Missoula, Montana. Largely shot in the first person, Emma documents her experiences after her release from an adolescent mental health unit. Struggling to stay afloat in the public school system, she candidly details the obstacles surrounding her adolescence - and her methods of escape. – Big Sky Documentary Film Festival