''I Lost My Mom'' (french: J'ai placé ma mère) is a 2022 Canadian documentary film, directed by

Denys Desjardins Denys Desjardins (born 1966 in Montreal, Quebec), is a film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor and film historian for more than twenty years. After completing studies in literature, film and communications, he directed several acc ...

. The film documents the experiences of Desjardins and his sister Maryse as they navigate the process of trying to get their mother Madeleine Ducharme, who suffered from advancing

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, placed in a

CHSLD Long-term care facilities in Canada exist under three types: public, subsidized and private. Public and subsidized differ only in their ownership, all other aspects of funding, admission criteria, cost to the individuals are all regulated by the Pr ...

, and then trying to stay involved in her care as she contracted

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

during the early days of the

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

when harsh safety restrictions were being imposed. It is a sequel to his 2020 film '' The Castle (Le Château)'', which profiled Madeleine as she initially confronted the prospect of having to move from her longtime home in a seniors' retirement complex to a more managed care setting. The film premiered on November 21, 2022, at the

Montreal International Documentary Festival The Montreal International Documentary Festival (french: Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montreal) is a Canadian documentary film festival, staged annually in Montreal, Quebec. In English, the festival now goes by the name Montreal I ...

Awards

The film was screened at the 2023

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June ...

, where it was named the winner of the Best Canadian Feature Documentary award. Stéphanie Hamelin Tomala received a nomination for Best Original Score for a Documentary Feature Film at the 2023

Canadian Screen Music Awards The Canadian Screen Music Awards are a Canadian award, launched in 2022 by the Screen Composers Guild of Canada to honour achievements in musical composition for film, television and digital media. Nominees for the inaugural awards were announced ...

. At the

12th Canadian Screen Awards The 12th Canadian Screen Awards is an upcoming ceremony, presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television and digital media production in 2023. They are scheduled to be held at the Can ...

in 2024, Hamelin Tomala received a nomination for Best Original Music in a Documentary, and Desjardins and Michel Giroux were nominated for Best Editing in a Documentary."BlackBerry Leads CSA Nominations"
''Northern Stars'', March 6, 2024.

References

External links

* 2022 films 2022 documentary films Canadian documentary films Films directed by Denys Desjardins 2020s French-language films 2020s Canadian films Documentary films about dementia Documentary films about the COVID-19 pandemic {{2020s-Canada-documentary-film-stub