Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers

In her bittersweet short Mother Tongue (2003), the Australian animator Susan Danta retells how, from 1976 to 1978, her mother taught her English in preparation for a move from their native Korea to Australia, where her father was already living and working. For the film, Danta resurfaced recordings of her voice that her mother made of her learning English, which she had then sent to her father. She interweaves these recordings with original narrations, reflecting on what it’s like to revisit these captured-on-tape moments she doesn’t remember, communicating in a language that she no longer speaks. Pairing these words with dreamy animations that evoke the fog of memory, Danta crafts a wistful, deeply personal work on what it means to leave a piece of yourself in the past, thousands of miles and a lifetime away.