Filmmaker Joanna Hogg contended with the ghosts of her past in 2019's The Souvenir and 2021's The Souvenir: Part II. Her newest film, The Eternal Daughter, is a literal ghost story.
In the Souvenir films, Tilda Swinton played the onscreen mother of her actual daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne. In The Eternal Daughter, she plays mother to herself, starring as both a middle-aged artist, Julie, and her elderly mother, Rosalind. To celebrate the latter's birthday, the pair check into the Moel Famau hotel, a former family home that is haunted by its past. As with all great ghost stories, the specters here stand in for something more profound.
"You brought her here," the hotel's caretaker (played by Joseph Mydell) intones in the trailer. "Memories flood back in this place, quietly in the evening, through the building and on the grounds. And I suppose it is a way of staying in touch."
"Tilda and I went on this incredible journey together, and it became an extraordinarily deep, warm, life-affirming experience," Hogg says of the film. "Because we know each other so well, we were able to go to depths that would not have been possible with anyone else. The conversations we had while making the film were a continuation of the same conversation we've had over many years about understanding the relationship we have with our mothers. It was such an emotional experience that it's essentially impossible to put into words."
The Eternal Daughter premiered during this year's Venice International Film Festival before screening at TIFF and the New York Film Festival, and opens in theaters Dec. 2. Watch the trailer below.
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