Many people, I assume, live many lifetimes in one, but that is especially true about poet and mother Staceyann Chin. As a university student in Kingston, Jamaica, she experienced intimidation that targets her as a 2SLGBT+ woman. After that harrowing experience, she moved to New York, eventually writing and performing poetry for people like the Sarsgards, who show up in archive footage. “There’s no second guessing myself” becomes one of the defiant adages in this documentary about her. Laurie Townsend’s A Mother Apart juxtaposes archive footage and interviews well, showing, duh, how much Chin changes through the years. Chin’s biggest trauma, nonetheless, is her mother Hazel leaving her so that the latter can live in Montreal, Canada. She eventually keeps in touch with Hazel and stepsister until COVID happened and the last number she has isn’t taking any calls.

A Mother Apart‘s most distracting aspect is the animation that comes with Chin’s narration of what it’s like to be a motherless child. It’s enough of me to take as many stars off because of that and the occasionally messy storytelling. But in a way, and I dislike to be a cliche, the messiness fits with the subject matter. What putss the documentary back together are Chin’s interviews, brimming with foresight in discussing a woman she knows despite their distance. One of the interviews has her discussing a man who tries to help Hazel, the latter’s affable personality attracting kind hearts. The documentary shows Chin’s outward cynicism, an armour she builds for herself over the decades to anticipate Hazel failing her. And yet, she helps and plays detective, because that’s what one does with family, no matter how difficult it seems.

Watch A Mother Apart as part of Hot Docs.