Women Affairs

The chance to explore the complexities of the mother-child relationship in new movie Blessed was too much to pass up for mothers Miranda Otto, Deborra-lee Furness and Frances O'Connor. The Australian actresses join forces in director Ana Kokkinos's film, adapted from the play Who's Afraid of the Working Class? Furness plays Tanya, a married mother of a teenage boy and the family's sole breadwinner. Otto is Bianca, who is more like a sister than a mother to teenage Katrina. O'Connor is Rhonda, a welfare-dependent woman whose three children have different fathers. They are joined by Russian-born actress Victoria Haralabidou, who plays Gina, a widowed and very religious mother who feels her son and daughter are a mystery. Speaking before the world premiere of Blessed at the Melbourne International Film Festival yesterday, the four women said they were drawn to the project because of the powerful bond between mother and child. "It's about mothers and chi...