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Poster for The Second Mother
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Released
2015 · FILM

The Second Mother

When housemaid Val’s estranged daughter moves into the affluent home she works at, Val must protect her hard‑won stability while confronting the clash of class and motherhood that could upend both their lives.

Directed by
Anna Muylaert
Written by
Anna Muylaert
Runtime
112 min
Language
PT
ComedyDrama

Synopsis

Val leaves her daughter Jessica with relatives in a small town in Pernambuco and spends the next 13 years working as a nanny for Fabinho in São Paulo. While she achieves financial stability, she also deals with the guilt of not raising Jessica herself. As Fabinho prepares for his university entrance exams, Jessica reenters Val’s life, seemingly offering her mother a second chance. However, Jessica was not raised to be a servant, and her presence disrupts Val’s carefully maintained routine. With precision and humor, the story explores the subtle yet powerful forces that uphold rigid class structures and suggests that the youth may be the ones to challenge and change them.

Credits

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 21

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Karen HarleyShot by Barbara AlvarezScored by Vitor AraujoDesigned by Thales Junqueira

Also known as

  • Der Sommer mit Mamãde
  • The Second Motherde
  • The Second Motheren
  • Une seconde mèrefr
  • È arrivata mia figlia!it

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