Mother Vera review – luminous portrait of a horse-wrangling ex-heroin addict nun

A nun in a remote Orthodox monastery in Belarus invites us into her world in this beautiful black and white documentaryThe opening sequence is extraordinary: a nun drops to the floor in devotion, hidden under the swathes of black habit puddling across the stone floor. There is more of this to come in photographer Alys Tomlinson and film-maker Cécile Embleton’s beautiful black and white documentary. It is film of stillness, long, long takes and careful framing – and would look at home playing on the walls of an art gallery. But Mother Vera, with its intense, luminous portrait of a woman, is not an austere art film.Her name is Vera, a nun in a remote Orthodox monastery in Belarus; you could cast her as Joan of Arc, with her beautiful fierce face. The setting itself might be medieval, but then out steps Vera into a bitingly cold wintry day, wearing a floor-length Puffa. She runs the convent stables, and seems to be most herself with the horses. On the voiceover Vera explains that before becoming a nun she was married, and a heroin addict. She came to the convent for a year while her husband went to prison. “I didn’t want to be a nun.” To say any more would give too much away. Continue reading...

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