JIFF: My Underground Mother

This film is also showing at our sister cinemas, Classic Cinemas and Ritz Cinemas

My Underground Mother

 “...by shining a new light on the strength of female survivors, My Underground Mother shows that telling the hard truths can also be heroic.” – Forward

Australian Premiere

In this absorbing and intimate documentary, New York journalist Marisa Fox delves into her mother’s secret past, discovering revelations about her life as a spy and freedom fighter against the Nazis.

Twenty years after her mother’s death, Fox uncovers that the woman she knew as Tamar, a redheaded freedom fighter in British mandate Palestine, began her life as Hela, a Polish-born survivor of a Jewish women’s forced labour camp in Nazi-occupied Sudetenland. Discovered hidden within a journal written by the camp’s teenage prisoners, Fox must reckon with a shocking, untold story of sexual trauma and post-war shaming which fuelled her mother’s reinvention.

Spanning Israel, Poland and beyond, over 15 years of relentless sleuthing, this gripping, first-person narrative weaves together testimonies including interviews with Gabersdorf survivors living in Australia, striking animation, and absorbing vérité footage of a daughter’s attempt to learn and come to terms with a parent’s unreconciled legacy.

Festival Appearances/Awards
Boca International Jewish Film Festival 2026 – Winner, Best Holocaust Documentary

Rating

Unclassified 15+

Duration

89 min

Country

United States

Language

English

Director

Marisa Fox