Mother’s Tongue

After moving out of her family home and being estranged from her mother, Gurleen yearns to reconnect with her Punjabi culture through cooking. But as she attempts to do so, she quickly realizes she’s missing a crucial element, her mother’s touch.

Directed by Vanesa Millado

Vanesa is a Toronto-based filmmaker of Chinese and Vietnamese descent, with a BFA in Film Production from York University. Her experience in the industry is in both long and short format, throughout the feature, documentary, television, and commercial worlds. With a cinematography background, Vanesa uses that to her advantage when it comes to storytelling in her direction. As an empath, Vanesa uses her sensitivity as her lens to explore emotion, tone, and rhythm. By creating a genuine and safe environment on set, nuanced beats naturally unravel before her lens. Her intuitive exploration of the medium results in strikingly meaningful visuals that support and enhance the story onwards. Vanesa pushes the boundaries of telling underrepresented stories to extend the power of feeling seen and heard to her community. So, they too can gather, empathize, and dream. So, they too can be proud to belong.