Hot Docs 2008

"As a kid I realized that she had a problem when my friends from school would tell me they saw my mom in the alley going through their dumpster," says filmmaker Cynthia Lester. This deeply moving personal story of filmmaker Lester's mother explores one woman's extreme attachment to material objects and her emotional struggle to let go. Overwhelmed by the excesses of North American consumer-driven society, Polish immigrant Eugenia Lester has taken recycling to the extreme. Her hoarding disorder has forced her and her three children out of the family home. With the mountains of debris growing daily, Eugenia can no longer dwell inside and is forced to sleep in her garden or, as Eugenia sees it, in "God's house." When the community threatens to evict her, her children come together for the first time to confront their mother's illness, dig out their home and regain a sense of family. My Mother's Garden is a brave and heartfelt diary of a mother and daughter brought together to purge and rebuild.
-Sarah Whitehouse