Event

Mother of George

Denni Mobama, owner and chef of a small African restaurant in Brooklyn, has worked six years to bring his fiancée Janet Matashane to New York, where he lives with his mother, Ma Denni, and brother Pete. Eager to uphold their Basotho culture, Denni and Janet have a traditional Basotho wedding culminating in a ceremony where Janet is named for her yet-to-be-conceived son, George.

Determined to please her husband, Ma George begins her new life with gusto and hope. Her days fill with cleaning and cooking, visiting Denni at the restaurant and window shopping at the Fulton Mall where she meets a childhood friend, Kendra, whose cosmopolitan life intrigues and entices her. At night, she watches TV and waits for Denni to come home, hoping and praying for George.

As the months pass and her pregnancy attempts fail, Ma George's loneliness intensifies. She secretly takes a job behind Denni's back and is introduced to immigrants just like her. For the first time, she feels part of a community independent of her husband, and is charged with a new sense of self.

But all this comes to a halt when she is unable to conceive George and is confronted by Ma Denni's ultimatum: according to custom, she must give her husband consent to take another woman. Torn between her Basotho culture and new life in America, Ma George desperately struggles to save her marriage, stopping at no cost to give Denni his much awaited son.