In My Mother Bought a Camera, filmmaker Geovana Pimentel is thrust back to her childhood when she finds her mother’s old video camera. Back in 2002, her mother purchased the camera despite her father’s insistence that it was an unnecessary expense, even paying for it in installments. Looking back, Geovana realizes that the purchase was crucial, as it provided the only moving images of her childhood. The simple footage captured everyday life, including moments inside their home, school recitals, and childlike discovery. Compared to photographs, video captures the movement of bodies, laughter, and breath.
Two decades later, in 2022, Geovana unearthed the tapes and is confronted by the distance she finds herself between the child and the adult she had become. Watching the footage was like encountering a tiny stranger—memories she had forgotten or thought lost suddenly resurfaced, while others felt foreign, as if they belonged to someone else entirely.
Archival footage of young Geovana Pimentel, filmed on her mother’s video camera in 2003.
“…Pimentel is thrust back to her childhood when she finds her mother’s old video camera.”
My Mother Bought a Camera is Geovana Pimentel’s video essay that explores themes of memory, identity, and the fragile link between childhood and adulthood. By uncovering her mother’s old tapes, she reflects on how moving images preserve not just our childlike appearances but also voice, movement, and emotion—qualities that still photographs cannot capture. The film examines the vast differences between what we remember as children and who we become as adults, and how forgotten or lost memories can resurface with profound impact. Ultimately, her work speaks to reconciliation with the inner child, offering a meditation on how personal archives can reshape our understanding of self and the passage of time.
When making a video essay, it’s all about connecting with the ideas and finding a way to move your audience. Pimentel shows us that even the simplest of ideas can move an audience. As a parent, My Mother Bought a Camera makes me think about the thousands of photos and videos of my child that have been collected over the years. At this point in time, she resists any attempt to revisit the past, but there will come a day when my child may thank me and my photo-obsessed wife for taking way too many pictures as a way for her to connect to her past.
"…shows us that even the simplest of ideas can move an audience."
