Ayr's Ethel is a film star in Belgium

Mar 27 2009 by Edwin Lawrence

Second award for family film

IT’S widely recognised as one of the most moving documentaries ever shown on TV.

And Mum & Me, mostly filmed in and around Ayr, this week picked up another award.

It has also become an international success, and a Belgian TV crew has done some follow-up filming.

Film-maker Sue Bourne turned the cameras on her own family to produce Mum & Me.

Sue’s widowed mother Ethel, 85, has Alzheimer’s and is in an Ayr nursing home.

The documentary was networked on BBC1 last year to critical acclaim. And although some were uneasy about the film’s searing honesty, it picked up a Mental Health Media Award.

And Sue, 55, this week travelled to Wales to collect another award at the Celtic Film Festival.

Sue admits: “I thought long and hard about whether to make this film and expose myself, my mother and my daughter.

“But I realised there was something special about mum and her Alzheimer’s, because she’s taught us to laugh in the face of adversity.”

London-based Sue was brought up in Alloway, and mum Ethel is well-known through her charity work with the Ayr branch of Save the Children.

But there has been a role reversal, with Ethel now the child of the family because of her dementia.

Mum & Me highlights good times and bad, with the love in the family shining through.

The film struck a chord when shown in Belgium, and a TV crew asked Sue if they could do a follow-up.

Sue said: “I thought we were done with filming, but when I mentioned it to mum, she said ‘That’ll be fun’.

“Mum’s still her jolly self, although she is physically more frail than she was a year ago when we filmed for Mum & Me.”

The Belgian TV crew were at Rozelle Holm Farm nursing home on Saturday.

Sue said: “The staff are so loving towards mum. They adore her because she’s so sweet.”

Sue’s daughter Holly, 19, who features in the programme, is now in her second year at Glasgow University and is able to visit her granny regularly.

Sue, whose acclaimed documentaries also include My Street, Wedding Days and Falling Man, also plans to have a Glasgow office so she can do more Scottish films.