MARTHA AND ETHEL

The subject is nannies-and not the “rock the cradle” kind. Director Jyll Johnstone didn't stray far from home to make this film. She began by documenting the woman who raised her: Martha Kneifel,her own nanny, a refugee from Nazi Germany. Johnstone's childhood friend and the film's co-producer, Barbara Ettinger, was also raised by a nanny: Ethel Edwards, the daughter of a black South Carolina sharecropper. Martha and Ethel are two very different women, two very different personalities-one a strict disciplinarian, the other a nurturing spirit-who made difficult personal decisions and compromises in choosing to raise other women's children. And MARTHA AND ETHEL is a profoundly moving testament to the intricacies of family dynamics and the joys-and responsibilities-of child rearing. By weaving together old photographs and home movies with contemporary interviews with the nannies and the (now-grown) children they raised, the film chronicles five decades of extraordinary love.