A compelling story about a Surinamese laundress who strives for a better life for her children.

Moeder Suriname is a moving documentary that uses unique archive material to tell the life story of a Surinamese washerwoman, inspired by director Tessa's grandmother Fansi. The life story covers the period from the abolition of slavery in 1863 to Surinamese independence in 1975.

Fansi's story begins in a deserted village where she grew up as a domestic slave after being given away by her white mother and black father. When Fansi herself becomes a mother at a young age and is abandoned by her husband, she moves to Paramaribo to offer her children a better future. As a single mother, she fights hard to give her children better opportunities. When her children leave for the Netherlands, she is left behind, not ready to leave Suriname. It is only in her final years that she makes the crossing to the Netherlands herself and experiences the uprooting from her motherland.