Beginnings
“What My Mother Told Me” started as a short story I wrote at 16, about the breakup of my parents’ marriage. I shared it with my father, and he cried. The story’s roots are tangled and personal. They began when I first met my mother, and she told me a story I’d never heard before, that would become the heart of my film.
The story my mother shared wasn’t just about her or even about us, but about my grandmother, my father’s mother, Eileen. Eileen was an Irish Methodist minister’s daughter, a generous, wild and creative spirit who married my grandfather and left Ireland for Trinidad in the 1940s. She was cut off by her family, not because he was Black, but because he was Catholic. Trinidad became her home, but her difference, her creativity, her whiteness (in a Black world) eventually led to her being ostracized. She drank. In the end, my grandfather sent her to England, where she deteriorated, alone and broken.
Family Histories and Hauntings
The news arrived in Trinidad that she had been found in the gutter, saying she was the wife of the Prime Minister of Trinidad. My grandfather, upon hearing this, said, “Let her rot.” But my father, unable to ignore this, traveled to England to see his mother and stayed until she died. Then he sent a telegram to my mother:
EILEEN DIED STOP COME STOP.
When my mother arrived with me (aged 3) to join him, he was already unraveling, crazy, forever carrying his dead mother’s eyeglasses in his breast pocket. My parents’ marriage did not survive this tragedy. When it all came apart, my father took me. My mother never saw me again.
That’s what my mother told me.
Claiming the Story
In the early 90s, Adjoa Andoh and I were part of a Black women’s support group. Over the years, we became close friends, collaborating on two of my earlier films, “I Is A Long Memoried Woman” (1990) based on the book of poems by Grace Nicholls, and “Reunion” (1993), about Caribbean women who served in the ATS during WWII.
We began shooting “What My Mother Told Me,” in a dilapidated house off Acre Lane in Brixton in 1993. My day job was as a script editor in TV Drama at the BBC. I was working with Ngozi Onwurah on a script of hers, and along the way, she also helped me shape the narrative of my film. Ngozi had just made Coffee Coloured Children, her own personal film of growing up in Newcastle. She gave me the title, insisting that I own the story fully.
Clarence Smith was a brilliant rising actor – he played my father. Nadine Williams, only four years old, played me, and became our on-set daughter. Eka Nowakowska, who worked with me at the BBC, was the Line Producer. Mike Spragg, who had already shot “Reunion” with me, agreed to be the cinematographer. No one was paid. Everyone, cast and crew, volunteered their time and talent.
Trinidad and the Present Day
The following year, we went to Trinidad to shoot the “present-day” sequences. Leonie Forbes, a legendary Jamaican actor and long-time collaborator and friend, agreed to join us. Because of the nature of the story, we wanted to keep it a secret. We shot it on an island off the coast of Trinidad, Gaspar Grande, in a large, sprawling wooden house. We all moved in down there, and Adjoa, Lee, and I spent a week improvising the story from our own deep memories and shared experiences to create a present-day framework for the film about a mother meeting her grown-up daughter for the first time and telling her stories of her childhood that she could not remember.
Robin Foster did the sound, Karen Martinez was the production manager, and Christopher Pinheiro designed the film. My cousin Larry Richardson provided the artwork, and Rubadiri Victor helped with the art department.
Making the Impossible Possible
For funding this trip, I owe gratitude to the inimitable Alan Fountain. At the time, he was the only commissioning editor in England with the vision and courage to take risks on independent films, driven by his profound belief and respect for creativity and the power of storytelling. A heavy smoker, Alan once told me, “This will be your trajectory.”
Chris Ridsdale edited the picture. He was an established editor and wanted to learn Avid, so he agreed to cut it for free.
Screening in Trinidad
The first screening in Trinidad was insane. In its final form, the film was about two generations of domestic violence. My father was a prominent lawyer; our family was well known, so a lot of people had strong feelings about it. The weekend edition newspaper headlines screamed, “WHAT FRANCES-ANNE SOLOMON’S MOTHER TOLD HER ABOUT HER FATHER.” I lost friends who thought it was terrible for me to do this, and who, to this day, still do. In my defense, I believe it is a time-honored tradition for women to speak out about violence, despite the taboos, and we were decades ahead of our time.
Christopher Laird hosted the screening at A Space in Port of Spain, and Tony Hall shielded me from the fallout. The audience of around 200 left largely without speaking, but later many called to say how moved they were. The film continued to garner fans over the years, and now, 30 years later.
The Heart of the Film
Making it was definitely an act of reclamation. I took the fragments of memories that my mother gave me, shaped by loss and generations of pain, and made something whole. I honored my grandmother and, in telling her story, found my own.
“What My Mother Told Me” is a film about inheritance—not just of blood, but of silence, hurt, survival, and ultimately, the stories mothers whisper to their daughters in the hopes that something might heal. Its making was a patchwork of love, loss, and the fierce loyalty of friends and collaborators. None of us got paid. All of us were changed.
I hope, by sharing this film and the process behind it, I honor not just what my mother told me, but all the stories passed down silently through women and time.
