Mother Mare

Mare is the lighthouse keeper of Kihnu, a small Estonian island off the Baltic Sea that has been described as Europe’s last matriarchy. While the men are away at sea during long periods of time, it is the women who guard and administer the land. What will be the fate of a place that has always been waiting for someone to return?

Director’s Notes:

The sea to men and the land to women,” would say anthropologist Macrina Marilena Maffei, who has studied the social and cultural dynamics around the Mediterranean for years. A phrase, however, that also fits Kihnu, this small island off the Baltic Sea on Estonia’s west coast.

In a place where men have always been absent, the role of women on Kihnu has expanded beyond traditional gender roles and into every aspect of life on the mainland. Not only keepers of songs, dances, and crafts, but also politicians, herders, conductors of religious services and rites of passage such as weddings and funerals. In Kihnu each has her own task, and everyone agrees: women can do anything, even on their own. Everything, of course, except go to sea. The sea belongs to the men.

And so Mare, the lighthouse keeper on this small island, like all women on Kihnu knows only one time: that of waiting.

In recent years, the flight of younger generations in search of greater opportunities, and the consequent aging of the population, is causing this unique culture that has always rejected mass tourism to falter. New questions are thus being raised with respect to future routes, while from the lighthouse, so white that it blends into the landscape, the flickering glimmer of a light is glimpsed far away. What will be the fate of a place that has always been waiting for someone to return?

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