American Documentary

Overview

Brooklyn, N.Y. – February 25, 2025 – POV, the multi-Emmy® and Peabody award-winning documentary series, explores generational trauma in director Chloe Abrahams’ feature debut, The Taste of Mango. The documentary produced by Abrahams and Elliott Whitton, is an enveloping, hypnotic, urgently personal meditation on family, memory, identity, violence, and love. The film traverses the precarious family dynamic between three extraordinary women: the director’s mother, Rozana; her grandmother, Jean; and the director herself. Their stories, by turns difficult and jubilant, testify to the entangled and ever-changing nature of inheritance and how we both hurt and protect the ones we love.

Executive produced by Academy Award®-nominated producers Diane Quon and Kellen Quinn, along with Martha Gregory, Hannah Bush Bailey, Robina Riccitiello and Bill Way The Taste of Mango will make its national broadcast premiere on POV Monday, April 28, 2025 at 10pm/9C (check local listings) on PBS Television. It will then be available to stream until June 27, 2025 at pbs.org, and the PBS App. Now in its 37th season, POV continues to mark its place as America’s longest-running non-fiction series.

The short film, The Cleaning Lady, directed by Ericka de Alexander, will accompany The Taste of Mango premiere. The story is about Marisol Reina, a loving mother of three who crossed the Mexico-U.S. border over a decade ago to provide a better life for her family. The film captures Marisol’s return to Mexico as she hopes to reconnect with the family she had to leave behind.

Director Chloe Abrahams utilizes abstract imagery and extreme close-ups in The Taste of Mango as she probes raw questions her mother and grandmother have long brushed aside regarding their traumatic pasts. Growing up in Sri Lanka, Jean was in love with Rozana’s father, “the only man who loved and protected her.” But that love match ended tragically when he died aged 27. Eventually, she married another man, providing young Rozana with a stepfather. This is a man who Chloe’s grandmother Jean is reluctant to discuss, despite remaining his partner four decades later.

Growing up in the UK, Chloe had always sensed pain within Rozana, and she’d heard fragments about Jean’s tumultuous marriage back in Sri Lanka. Now, as a young adult, Chloe spends time with both Rozana and Jean, in London and Colombo, Sri Lanka, listening to and recording their stories. What emerges is a delicately layered, personal and collective portrait of coping with physical and sexual violence, the strength of family bonds across time and distance, the damage of grief and estrangement, and the possibilities of hope, joy, healing, and reconciliation.

In The Taste of Mango, Chloe draws on her experience as a portrait painter and video artist, to tell her story in a unique singular and assured cinematic language. Incorporating raw camcorder footage, she toggles toward metaphor, dwelling suggestively on textures, and pushing close-ups further than technology or physical autonomy can bear. Her voice-overs – in direct address to her mother – dialogue with a haunting soundtrack, alternating between Suren Seneviratne’s dreamlike score and 1970s American country songs.

“Making this film began as an impulse and a desire to mend the relationship between my mother and grandmother,” said Chloe Abrahams, director of The Taste of Mango. “Over the course of five years, it became clear that it was a necessary process to heal deep wounds in myself, too. POV has a track record of showcasing artful, character-driven documentaries, and I have long admired the curation of this series. It's an honor to share this film, a real labor of love, with POV audiences across the US.”

"Chloe Abrahams’ story of generational trauma for the women in her family is unflinching, but also very tender," said Erika Dilday, Executive Director American Documentary and Executive Producer POV and America ReFramed. "The Taste of Mango has been described as hypnotic, but I would call it lyrical. There is a respect and magical handling of an incredibly complex subject. I'm excited for audiences to see and engage with the film."

The Taste of Mango made its world premiere at the 2023 True/False Festival (US). It made the longlist for the 2025 BAFTA for Outstanding British Debut. It won the “Audience Award for Best Documentary” at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, and Chloe Abrahams took home the “Best Debut Director - Documentary” award at the British Independent Film Awards. At the 2023 Indie Memphis, Departures Competition, the documentary won the “Audience Award for Best Departures Feature.” In 2024 it was featured at the Chennai International Film Festival (India), DOCUTAH (US), and the Flatpack Festival (UK). In 2023, The Taste of Mango was an official selection at the BlackStar Film Festival (US), Austin Asian American Film Festival (US), Women Make Waves Film Festival (Taiwan), Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival (Canada), Mental Health Film Festival Singapore (Singapore) and the Barcelona Human Rights Festival (Spain) to name a few.

Raves include:

"a lucid, emotionally honest account of trauma... quietly powerful"

- Peter Davidson, THE GUARDIAN

"reaffirms the strength of generational bonds and champions the desire of the new generation to question and provoke and demand answers"

-Tom Davidson, THE EVENING STANDARD

"The Taste of Mango communicates an enormous sense of love and generosity throughout"

- FILMMAKER MAGAZINE

"a testament to sensory filmmaking, where the act of looking evokes smell and taste"

- CINEUROPA

"a bright seam of joy runs through Abrahams' engrossing first feature"

-SIGHT AND SOUND

The Taste of Mango is a Cardamon Films and Fit Via Vi production. Chloe Abrahams is the director, producer, screenwriter, chief cinematographer and editor. Elliott Whitton is a producer, and Diane Quon, Kellen Quinn, Martha Gregory, Hannah Bush Bailey, Robina Riccitiello, Bill Way, and Erika Dilday, Chris White for American Documentary are the executive producers. Stella Heath Keir and Isidore Bethel are the editors. Suren Seneviratne is the composer and Eli Cohn is the sound designer.

Photos

Download The Taste of Mango photos.

Click The Taste of Mango Press Kit to access the festival press notes.

Credits

Director: Chloe Abrahams
Producers: Chloe Abrahams, Elliott Whitton
Cast/Participants: Jean Davidson Rozana Ross
Executive Producers: Diane Quon, Kellen Quinn, Martha Gregory, Hannah Bush Bailey, Robina Riccitiello, Bill Way, and Erika Dilday, Chris White for American Documentary
Cinematographer: Chloe Abrahams
Screenwriter: Chloe Abrahams
Editors: Chloe Abrahams, Stella Heath Keir, Isidore Bethel
Composer: Suren Seneviratne
Sound Design: Eli Cohn
Language: English
Country: UK, USA
Year: 2023

About the Filmmakers

Chloe Abrahams - Director, Producer, Writer, Editor, Cinematographer, The Taste of Mango

Chloe Abrahams is a Sri Lankan British artist and filmmaker. Chloe’s debut non-fiction film, The Taste Of Mango, premiered at True/False 2023 where it was named the #1 film by Sight & Sound. The film went on to win the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the BFI London Film Festival, the BIFA for Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary, as well as making the BAFTA long-list for Best British Debut. As an editor, Chloe has collaborated with directors Robie Flores (The In Between), Asher Levinthal (Shaken), David Usui (Been Here Stay Here), and Luke Lorentzen (A Still Small Voice).

In 2020 Chloe was awarded the John Brabourne Award and has three times been shortlisted for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2018, 2019, 2022). She had her first solo exhibition at OVADA (2014), and has since been selected for exhibitions worldwide, including The London Open at the Whitechapel Gallery 2022.

Previously, Chloe worked as the Marketing Coordinator for documentary distributor Dogwoof, responsible for the execution of all UK theatrical campaigns, and recently completed a Master’s in Moving Image at the Royal College of Art, where she was nominated for the HIGH Prize for Excellence.

Elliott Whitton, Producer, The Taste of Mango

Elliott Whitton is the SVP of Fit Via Vi. He is the Executive Producer of the Peabody-winning HBO film REALITY, starring Sydney Sweeney, National Geographic's Academy Award®-nominated Sugarcane, A24’s Tuesday, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and the BAFTA-nominated Mogul Mowgli starring Riz Ahmed. He is also a Co-Executive Producer of Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, starring Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi. Elliott is a Co-Producer of David Byrne’s Tony Award®-nominated musical Here Lies Love and Redwood, starring Idina Menzel. Elliott has also served as an executive on a range of celebrated films, including the Academy Award®-nominated Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, Boots Riley's Sorry To Bother You, Eliza Hittman's Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and Kogonada's A24 film After Yang.

Diane Quon, Executive Producer, The Taste of Mango

Diane Quon is an Academy Award®-nominated producer who worked as a marketing executive at NBC and Paramount Pictures in LA before moving back to her hometown of Chicago. Diane has produced many documentaries including: Oscar®- and Emmy®-nominated, Peabody award-winning film, Minding the Gap (Hulu, POV); The Dilemma of Desire (Showtime); Emmy®-nominated Finding Yingying (MTVDocs); For the Left Hand (PBS); Wuhan Wuhan (POV); the 2022 Oscar®-shortlisted Bad Axe (IFC FILMS) and Surf Nation (Mountainfilm 2022). She is producing the upcoming documentaries: Breaking the News, Sam and Omar Project, and The Futurists. Diane is also developing a fiction film based on The New York Times bestseller. Diane is an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences member, a Television Academy member, and a DPA and PGA member. She is a recipient of the2020 Cinereach Producer Award, and is a Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, an IFP Cannes Producer Fellow and a Film Independent Fellow.

Kellen Quinn, Executive Producer, The Taste of Mango

Kellen Quinn is a twice Oscar®-nominated producer whose credits include Garrett Bradley's Time (Oscar®-nominated; Sundance 2020 winner of the Directing Award, US Documentary Competition), Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie's Sugarcane (Oscar®-nominated; Sundance 2024 winner of the Directing Award, US Documentary Competition), Luke Lorentzen's A Still Small Voice (shortlisted for Documentary Feature Oscar®; Sundance 2023 winner of the Directing Award, US Documentary Competition), David Osit's Predators (Sundance 2025), Robie Flores's The In Between (SXSW 2024), Lorentzen's Midnight Family (shortlisted for Documentary Feature Oscar; Sundance 2019 winner of Special Jury Award for Cinematography, US Documentary Competition), Asher Levinthal’s Shaken (DOC NYC 2023), Noah Hutton’s In Silico (DOC NYC 2020), Daniel Hymanson’s So Late So Soon (True/False 2020) and Viktor Jakovleski's Brimstone & Glory (True/False 2017; aired on POV). Kellen was selected for the Dear Producer Award in 2023 and DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 class in 2020. In 2017 and 2018, he participated in the Sundance Documentary Creative Producing Lab and Fellowship. In 2016, he was among six producers selected for Impact Partners’ Documentary Producers Fellowship. He runs the production company Hedgehog Films with Luke Lorentzen.

Stella Heath Keir, Editor, The Taste of Mango

Stella Heath Keir is an editor based in London. She is drawn to urgent, unflinching and authored works. She graduated with distinction from the National Film & Television School in 2019 and was selected to attend the Berlinale Talents Editing Studio in 2020. Her work has been BAFTA, BIFA and RTS nominated. Films she's edited have premiered internationally at festivals such as Cannes; La Semaine de la Critique, Sundance, Palm Springs and Rhode Island. Closer to home, they’ve screened in competition and won awards at festivals such as the BFI LFF, EIFF and Sheffield Doc/Fest, amongst others. Creatively versatile, Stella has cut numerous shorts, both fiction and non-fiction, for broadcasters and funders such as Film4, BBC Films, BFI, and ARTE Creative. Her first drama feature film Girl by director Adura Onashile – Screen International Star of Tomorrow – premiered at Sundance 2023 in the World Cinema Competition, supported by BBC Films, BFI and Screen Scotland.

Isidore Bethel, Editor, The Taste of Mango

Isidore Bethel is a filmmaker and educator. His directorial debut Liam received the Paris LGBTQ+ Film Festival’s Jury Prize in 2018 and is streaming on Tënk. His second film as director Acts of Love premiered at Hot Docs and received Tacoma’s Best Feature Award in 2021 before Here Films released it in the US in 2022. Isidore’s editing, producing, and writing work has screened at Cannes, SXSW, the Berlinale, and Sundance London and on POV, Op-Docs, the Criterion Channel, and Netflix, receiving over 30 awards, Mexican Academy, European Film Academy, and Gotham Award nominations, and IndieWire and New York Times Critic’s Picks. Support for those films has come from the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, IDA, SFFILM, Doc Society, The Whickers, Catapult, and France’s CNC and Mexico’s IMCINE film boards. Filmmaker Magazine included him among its “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2020. A graduate of Harvard, the École Normale Supérieure, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Isidore has been an artist-in-residence with the Institut Français, the Logan Nonfiction Program, and the Villa Medici in Rome as well as a guest artist at UT Austin, Oxford, and Yale.

About

About POV

Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television. Since 1988, POV has presented films on PBS that capture the full spectrum of the human experience, with a long commitment to centering women and people of color in front of, and behind, the camera. The series is known for introducing generations of viewers to groundbreaking works like Tongues Untied (1989), Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1992), Rabbit in the Room (1999), Of Civil Wrongs & Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2001), Made in L.A. (2007), American Promise (2013), Not Going Quietly (2021), While We Watched (2022), A House Made of Splinters (2022) and the mini-series And She Could be Next (2020). Throughout its history POV has featured the work of award-winning, innovative filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, Laura Poitras, Nanfu Wang, Frederick Wiseman, Emiko Omori, Janus Metz Pedersen and Ava DuVernay. In 2018, POV Shorts launched as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. In 2024, Indiewire named seven POV films in its roundup of “The 50 Best Documentaries of the 21st Century”: Faya Dayi (2021), The Mole Agent (2020), Minding The Gap (2018), Cameraperson (2016), The Look of Silence (2015), The Act of Killing (2013) and After Tiller (2013). All POV programs are available for streaming concurrent with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. For more information about PBS Passport, visit the PBS Passport FAQ website.

POV goes “beyond the broadcast” to bring powerful nonfiction storytelling to viewers wherever they are. Free educational resources accompany every film and a community network of thousands of partners nationwide work with POV to spark dialogue around today’s most pressing issues. POV continues to explore the future of documentary through innovative productions with partners such as The New York Times and The National Film Board of Canada and on platforms including Snapchat and Instagram.

POV films and projects have won 48 Emmy Awards, 28 George Foster Peabody Awards, 16 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards® and the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award. Learn more at pbs.org/pov and follow @povdocs on social media.

About American Documentary, Inc.

American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia organization dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.

Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, the Open Society Foundations, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Park Foundation, and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, Acton Family Giving, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.

About PBS

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