Evelyne Tollman

Two sisters struggle with what it means to be a mother. One after the sudden loss of her baby, the other with her own inability to care for her young child. Together they find hope in the face of tragedy.

BIRTH OF INDUSTRY is a contemporary allegory that explores the dualism of industry and nature. Maya, a young woman, emerges mysteriously from the ocean to give birth to her son, Joseph. Joseph quickly grows from infancy to adolescence and ventures into the industrialized world leaving his Mother behind. In the desperate pursuit of her son, Maya is subjected to a series of torturous rituals that serve to corrupt her state of natural being. Joseph, now an adult and himself a by-product of industry, is discovered by Maya to be the chief mechanism of her suffering. In an act of cosmic retribution Maya unleashes her motherly powers reducing him to the infant he once was and takes him with her back into the ocean.

On the cusp of her 100th birthday, Risa Inglefeld looks back on a life full of hard knocks and shares her secrets to getting up again with joy and humor. A meditation on life, aging, love and the secret to living with joy.