Death of a Saint
Patricia Bbaale Bandak / Denmark / 2024 / World Premiere / 92 min
A Danish director travels to Uganda to find out what happened the Christmas Eve her mother lost her life. A personal and life-affirming film about family, motherhood and confronting the past.
On Christmas Eve 1989, when film director Patricia Bbaale Bandak is two years old, her mother is shot and dies in the family home in Uganda. On Christmas Eve 2013, Patricia gives birth to a daughter of her own and names her Imelda after her late mother. Today, more than 30 years after the murder, she travels to Uganda to delve into the traumatic past and find out why her mother was killed and to get closer to who she really was. But how can you paint a truthful picture when culture dictates that you can’t speak ill of the deceased? And when you struggle to ask your father the difficult but necessary questions? Through dusty archive footage, shaky and humorous conversations with her brothers in Denmark and her family in Uganda, ‘Death of a Saint’ moves slowly towards an understanding of the brutal murder and her mother, but also of motherhood, family life and Patricia herself.