Melody

Director Bernard Bellefroid's first feature, The Boat Race (2009), and his documentaries both fall into place in this sensitive drama, in which he follows the journeys of a woman wanting a baby and a surrogate mother.
To earn the money to start her own hairdressing business, 28-year-old homeless woman Melody agrees to be a surrogate mother for Emily, a rich English businesswoman aged 48. To keep an eye on Melody (and her unborn child), Emily decides that the surrogate mother should live with her during her pregnancy in her big house on the English coast. In spite of mistrust, doubts and fears, a bond develops between the women. In Emily, Melody finds the mother she never had, and in turn Emily begins to see Melody as the daughter she always wanted.
Bellefroid takes a humane look at a highly charged subject, intuitively played out by Rachael Blake and Lucie Debay, who were jointly awarded best actress at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Met IFFR Live screening on Mon 26-1.