Single Moms

Erika Hníková / Czech Republic / 2021 / World Premiere / 53 min.

synopsis

There are over 195,000 households in the Czech Republic where children live with just one of their parents. In most cases, these single-parent families are pretty much run entirely by the mother figure, who must struggle to find housing, work, and money all while raising their children. Single Moms is a made-for-TV documentary that exposes the social issue of single parenting. The film focuses on three single mothers: Alena, Míša, and Lucie. During filming, they find themselves in difficult life situations that they must work to resolve. Míša is being evicted from her apartment because she can’t afford to pay rent and has no idea where she and her son will end up. Alena is forced to start moonlighting so she can support her three daughters and ends up struggling with her work-life balance in the process. And then there’s Lucie, who is relatively financially secure and happy with being single but begins to realize that maybe she misses having a significant other in her life.

biography

Czech documentary filmmaker Erika Hníková (1976) studied at the Department of Documentary Movies at FAMU. Her thesis film project, The Beauty Exchange (2003), reflects on the phenomenon of idealistic female beauty and earned her the Audience Award at Ji.hlava IDFF, where her films regularly make an appearance.