Cut off from their ancestry by the three-hundred-year-long slave trade which uprooted 12 million people from Africa, three people are given the opportunity, through DNA searches, to reconnect with their roots. Through advances in DNA research and with the help of laboratories in the UK and America, the possibility arises that with a swab from the inside of a person's cheek they can trace back twelve or thirteen generations to the tribe of their ancestors.

We follow three people in their search for their roots. Mark's search leads him from London to reconnect with the Kanuri tribe in southern Niger. Jacqueline's family comes from Jamaica. She is mixed race and research reveals one ancestor was a slave owner; she visits what was once his sugar plantation. Beaula has always felt a deep affinity with Africa. Her DNA test results lead her to Bioko island in Equatorial Guinea where the Bubi tribe still lives. There she is welcomed as a sister. For each person, the reconnection is emotional, but weighted also with unanticipated cultural differences.

What is behind this longing to know? Strong feelings of "otherness" because of being dark skinned in white society. Motherland explores the emotional terrain of being cut off from one's roots. By following these intense journeys of re-discovery and re-connection, the film speaks to a wide range of identity issues in the African diaspora.

"I was astounded by the programme - one of the most remarkable I have seen in recent years." Greg Dyke, Director-General, BBC

"Highly Recommended. This film explores the importance of ancestry in determining self-image, and to a certain degree, self-respect. How much does our genetic background, especially the small slice of it examined by this kind of genetic testing, tell us about who we are, and shape how we see ourselves?" Thomas J. Beck University of Colorado at Denver EMRO

"Ground-breaking." The Times (London)

International Documentary Festival, Amsterdam 2003
Prix Europa, 2003
Best Documentary, One World Media Award, 2002