David Gutnik’s debut feature Materna—awarded Best Actress (Assol Abhullina) and Best Cinematography at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival—is a fascinating anthology of tales intersecting on a NYC subway train when four vastly different women are bound by a violent altercation. This existential portrait also connects these women by their toxic maternal relationships. Lost in a dark, solitary, virtual reality, a young woman endures her mother’s requests that she freeze her eggs; a struggling actress must reconcile with her Jehovah’s Witness mother; a concerned mother struggles to confront her troubled son; and an immigrant returns home to bury the last male in her family. From the producers of A Ghost Story and Radium Girls (FFF 2019), this compelling drama features great supporting turns from indie darling Kate Lyn Sheil (She Dies Tomorrow), country singer Sturgill Simpson, and Rory Culkin (Gabriel, FFF 2014) as a remarkable, empathetic character who provides a voice of reason. These stories of hunger for love and understanding are revealed when the world feels—as it does now—like it’s coming apart. However, the truth of who we are will remain when we put the pieces back together.