It was when award-winning photographer Alys Tomlinson was working on her book Ex-Voto, about Catholic pilgrimage sites, that she first encountered the remarkable Mother Vera, the subject of her new documentary of that name (co-directed with Cécile Embleton and receiving its world premiere in the international competition at Visions Du Réel).
Both Tomlinson and Embleton were instantly drawn to Vera, a charismatic former heroin addict who had lived in an Orthodox monastery in Belarus for 20 years. “The origin of the film is from a chance encounter really, a portrait of her we took which led to so much more,” says Tomlinson.
The two filmmakers complemented each other well.
“What really worked with Alys and I was the combination of our views and backgrounds. For me, spirituality is a really big part of my life. Meeting Vera resonated very deeply in a spiritual sense. Alys is an atheist and her anthropological practice brought another really crucial dimension,” Embleton suggests.
Tomlinson acknowledges that she had never before set foot in a convent and so “this was a new world to be entering.”
Both directors share the same sense of “stillness, framing and composition.” They cite the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky as one of their great influences. Mother Vera is mostly shot in black and white, as was Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev, his 1966 classic about a medieval icon painter.
They were working as “essentially a two-woman team,” doing everything together. Only later, when they secured some extra funding, were they able to bring on a sound recordist. Cécile did the majority of the cinematography while Alys handled sound.
The filmmakers are very aware of outsiders’ perception of Belarus under its dictatorial ruler Lukashenko, but wanted to show a less brutal side of the country. The monastery was anyway far removed from the political turbulence elsewhere in the country. “Obviously, we are in underground crypts for hours on end,” Tomlinson notes. “You do feel you are stepping into a separate world when you are in that community.”
Mother Vera was the manager at the convent stables. Part of her daily life involved looking after and riding horses. The film includes astonishing footage of her galloping at high speed across a snowy landscape and of her playing with the beasts. One horse lies down beside her and lets her lay her head on its flank. She clearly feels an inner freedom when she is with the horses. They in turn trust her. The filmmakers call her “a horse whisperer.”
“What struck me was this breadth of her character. She was somebody who was so earthy and physical and at the same time so connected to nature and striving to be connected to something bigger than us. I felt very drawn to her quest,” Embleton reflects. “She wants to experience all of life and yet she was in this monastery.”
The filmmakers use a voice-over from Vera to provide the film with its narrative backbone.
“We did a series of interviews over four years. It took a long time for Vera to open up in a deep way about her story. We didn’t know at the beginning that she was thinking of leaving the monastery and that she had had this very tumultuous life before she arrived there,” says Tomlinson.
The two directors knew they needed to be patient. It was late on, after Vera had left the monastery, that she shared her story in full.
“The great thing is that Vera has such a poetic way of talking about her life and journey. Her words are really powerful,” Tomlinson observes. “It was just a case of collecting what we needed when she felt ready to share it.”
Vera’s original name, which she took back when she left the monastery, is Olga. The name ‘Vera’ was very significant for her journey. It means ‘faith.’ When she first turned up at the monastery, this was the name chosen for her.
Tomlinson believes that all the nuns struggled with their faith at times. “There are very few monastic sisters who feel unwavering about their faith. I think that is part of that environment. You are made to question it because it is something you are thinking about all the time. But I personally felt when I first met her that she was deeply spiritual, extremely committed to her faith and also very loyal and stoical.”
The two directors were startled when they received a call telling them that Vera had left the monastery. They rushed back to Belarus to discover that she had gone to Crimea to work with horses. She returned and they were able to film some evocative scenes with her and her family.
When she left the monastery, Vera had nothing: no money, no job, no passport. She took a job as a cleaner in a nightclub in Minsk. The filmmakers show her at work. “She’s alone again but in a very, very different environment.”
Eventually, Vera made her way to the Camargue where she hoped to learn dressage. She managed to travel there despite restrictions in place because of the pandemic. She found work but it wasn’t as straightforward as she had hoped. She didn’t speak French. The work was tough.
“She knew it was going to be quite a difficult experience but she learns a lot from that.”
Vera often talks about experiencing her life as a dream. It has had its very dark moments. In her years of drug addiction, she confesses to getting other young girls hooked on heroin and stealing from people very close to her.
“I think we knew there was something very difficult she was dealing with…she used to talk a lot about fighting the bad person within you,” Embleton remembers. “That confession came in the last interview she did and I think was probably a very difficult thing for her to share, but also important. It was something she was carrying inside…this redemption journey she was going on in the monastery was to try and forgive herself, I think, for that.”
Tomlinson acknowledges she was “quite shocked” to hear the revelations about their subject’s misdeeds. “It has been a long process to forgive herself and to accept the harm and pain she caused to those around her…she even said when we first met that she was drawn to things that were forbidden and the more forbidden they were, the more interesting they were to her. She has this side of her that is drawn to danger. I think that is something she learned to deal with.”
The filmmakers point out, though, that her behaviour was driven by addiction. The Vera of today is “a wonderfully kind, generous and thoughtful person.”
The documentary has support from the Sundance Institute. It was produced by Laura Shacham through She Makes Productions. Vera will be at the premiere in Nyon. The film will also screen at Docs Against Gravity in Poland and at various other festivals. A sales agent is expected soon to be appointed.
