Alma

Ruth Leitman
USA, 1998, 94 min.

Producer: Ruth Leitman
Director of Photography: Mark Petersen
Editors: Ann Husaini, Ruth Leitman, Darcy Bowman. Music Connie Hanes, Steve Dixon.

Margie Thorpe is a back-sassin', whiskey-sippin', country-singin' Grande Dame. Her mother Alma is a Southern working-class Norma Desmond. Alma's deeply held view-points on sexuality, motherhood, and sweepstakes combine to create the living embodiment of "Southern Gothic." A rape by an uncle in a cotton field at the age of seven is described by Alma as the seduction of Adam by Eve. Past lovers are romanticized as bank robbers, murderers and ministers. In this intimate and darkly humorous portrait of the Thorpe family, filmmaker Ruth Leitman (of Wildwood, New Jersey) follows Margie's struggle with a mentally ill mother and an abusive alcoholic father. Framed by accusations of incest, Alma is an unflinching examination of family secrets, love and abuse. it is also a modern-day Southern Grey Gardens.