Victoria Mapplebeck is a BAFTA-winning filmmaker and professor of Digital Arts at Royal Holloway. She received the 2019 BAFTA for her short-form documentary Missed Call, shot entirely on her iPhone. With her debut feature Motherboard, which premiered at the 2024 London Film Festival, Mapplebeck turns the camera on two decades of life with her son Jim, exploring motherhood, illness, and the evolution of technology. Here, she talks candidly about returning to filmmaking, balancing her dual role as mother and director, and why honesty remains her most powerful tool.
First, congratulations on your feature documentary Motherboard. What was it like returning to filmmaking after such a long break?
It wasn’t planned, to be honest. When I was 38, I found myself single, pregnant, and broke after a very short relationship with Jim’s dad we’d only had about five dates before splitting. At the time, I was a self-shooting TV director, mostly for Channel 4, and the hours were brutal long evenings, constant travel. That life just wasn’t going to work as a solo mum, so I gave it up.
I moved into teaching, which I also loved. I got a post at Royal Holloway when Jim was two, running a Master’s in documentary filmmaking and teaching undergrads. But I really missed making films. The turning point came when I saw Sean Baker’s Tangerine, the first feature drama shot entirely on a smartphone. I thought, “Oh my God, I could actually use this to make short films.”
At that time, I was developing a film for Film London with a tiny £2,000 budget back in my Channel 4 days, that would’ve been just the cab budget!
But seeing Tangerine showed me it was possible to come back, to find another way in.
The decision to shoot Motherboard on a smartphone is both evocative and groundbreaking. Where did that idea come from?
I’m fascinated by how we live our lives through the phone. In Motherboard you see Jim grow up, but you also see technology grow up alongside him. There’s a kind of arc from the clunky Nokia text, which will always have a place in my heart, to Apple, Snapchat, TikTok, Insta. I loved showing that evolution in parallel with our own story.
The film is deeply personal. How did you balance being a filmmaker and being a mother while directing something so emotionally intimate?
That was one of the hardest parts. I remember in the edit, I was watching footage from when I was ill with cancer by then my hair had grown back, I was well again but seeing myself sick all day was tough. Any woman who’s been through cancer knows you’re constantly worried about recurrence, so it was hard mentally.
My therapist said something that stuck: “It depends whether you’re reliving it, or re-scripting it.” And I realised I was re-scripting. Shaping the story gave me a sense of agency.
I also didn’t want to be vain about how I looked. We don’t see enough films where women are allowed to age, to look rough, to go through illness or disability. I wanted to keep it real, as Jim would say.
But there was always that other layer Jim’s consent. I had a wonderful editor, Lisa Forrest, and from when Jim was 12 or 13, he had power of veto. We’d show him rough cuts, and if he wasn’t okay with something, it didn’t go in. That trust was essential.
Sometimes the toughest material was also the most truthful like the terrible row during COVID, when I suggested he take the driving theory test as a “productive” thing to do. Total stupid idea. We ended up in this visceral fight that felt claustrophobic and frightening, like so many families in lockdown. It was painful, but Jim and I both knew it was good material, because it captured something authentic about that moment in time.
Audiences have watched Jim grow up across your work. How has his role in front of and behind the camera evolved?
From the beginning, he’s been more than just “the subject” he’s been a collaborator.
Giving him veto power meant that he was shaping the films with me, deciding what was fair and what wasn’t. As he’s grown older, he’s become more articulate and reflective about what it means to be filmed, and that’s made him an even stronger presence both on and off screen.
The film premiered at the 2024 London Film Festival. What did it mean to share such a personal story on that stage?
It was huge. For something so personal to be recognised on that platform it felt validating, but also terrifying. Because it’s not just my story, it’s Jim’s too.
What kind of conversations have audiences had with you afterwards? Any surprises?
A lot of people have come up to me about the COVID sequences, saying they recognised themselves in that claustrophobic family dynamic. The rows, the tension everyone had their breaking point during lockdown. It surprised me how universal that ended up being.
What advice would you give to filmmakers especially women who are using their own lives as material?
Be prepared for it to hurt. But also, give yourself time. Unlike “sharenting” on social media, which is immediate and sometimes exploitative, we spent years deciding what to include. Time gives your perspective, and it gives the people in your story like your children the ability to properly consent.
Do you ever worry about being too honest on screen, or do you see that as a strength?
I think honesty is the strength. We don’t see enough films that really show illness, aging, or the messiness of family life without filters. Audiences can handle it more than we give them credit for.
Who inspires you in terms of blending form and autobiography?
Sean Baker was a huge influence with Tangerine. It showed me you could make something cinematic and powerful with the simplest of tools. But beyond that, I’ve always been drawn to artists who blur the line between life and art. Jonas Mekas, for example, with his diaristic films, or Agnès Varda, who wove autobiography into her work so playfully and profoundly.
I think what excites me is when form and content are inseparable when the way a film is made mirrors the life being documented. That’s what I’ve tried to do with Motherboard: the smartphone isn’t just a camera, it’s part of the story, because it’s how we live, how we communicate, how Jim grew up.
Now that you’ve completed your first feature, has the spark reignited? What’s next?
Definitely. Motherboard reminded me why I love making films it felt like coming home in a way. I’m still drawn to stories that start in the intimate, personal space but open out into bigger cultural conversations about technology, about family, about how we live now.
I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the kind of big-crew, big-budget work I did in my twenties; I love the agility and intimacy of working with small cameras, often on my phone. It keeps me close to the subject, and to the truth of it.
Right now, I’m circling around a couple of ideas some short form experiments and potentially another feature but all with that same DNA: autobiographical threads that speak to wider shifts in how we connect, parent, grieve, survive.
One idea that’s really exciting me is a VR piece working with headsets, almost like putting on “googles” and stepping into my world. I’m interested in capturing what it feels like to live through your 60s as a woman, in a body that’s changing, with all the history you carry. It’s about intimacy again, but in a new form, where the audience doesn’t just watch you place them inside your shoes.
I want to keep making work that feels raw and alive, but also sparks recognition in others, whether it’s on a cinema screen, a phone, or through VR.
As our conversation closes, Mapplebeck returns to what has guided her journey: honesty. With BAFTA recognition under her belt, she continues to collapse the boundaries between life, art, and audience, wielding smartphones not as tools, but as extensions of everyday truth. Looking ahead to short films, VR works, and perhaps another feature one thing remains clear: she’ll keep filming life as it unfolds, with all its raw, unfiltered beauty.
MOTHERBOARD is now in cinemas tullstories.co.uk