– Describe the plot. Examples that sometimes get confused:
The film destabilises the myth of the asexual mother, a trope long perpetuated in both Arab and Western media (Mahmoud, 2014). By foregrounding Aisha’s sexual relationships, My Mother’s Lovers re‑positions motherhood as compatible with desire rather than antithetical to it. The narrative also illustrates how Aisha’s sexuality is policed not only by patriarchal institutions (the state, the family) but also by her own internalised moral codes, which she negotiates through secrecy and selective disclosure. – Describe the plot
The past decade has witnessed a surge of autobiographically‑inflected works that confront the private histories of women whose sexual agency has been erased or marginalised. Within this trend, Kamal Mtrjm’s My Mother’s Lovers occupies a singular position: it is simultaneously a personal reckoning and a broader cultural critique. The film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and subsequently sparked heated debates across the Arab world, Europe, and North America regarding its treatment of taboo subjects—namely, the sexual lives of older women and the impact of those lives on their daughters. The narrative also illustrates how Aisha’s sexuality is