“Based on journals kept by Swedish screenwriter and film critic, Gerd Osten, between 1939 and 1944, Mamma, Our Life Is Now is an insightful memoir by Gerd's daughter, Suzanne Osten. Nicely balanced between the poignant and the surreally absurd (critics citing the influences of Buñuel and Resnais), Mamma, Our Life Is Now evokes a sense of history merged with a woman artist's story. An aspiring filmmaker, Osten continues against tough odds during the war years until, in 1944, a breakdown precipitates insanity. Suzanne Osten and Norwegian filmmaker Tove Effelsen, who co-wrote the script, have dedicated this film to their mothers, “the adult generation of the '30s and '40s--the women for whom the dream of autonomous life was mutilated by the war, (women) locked in the feminine role that never permitted them to create.” Never lapsing into the sentimental, this first feature demonstrates Osten's ability to fit the tragic with the comic; the result is a vision of reflection, understanding, and strength.” Laura Thielen