The August Years of May and Gloria

Directed By Maureen Judge

The August Years of May and Gloria is a darkly humorous, compassionate and intimate documentary about an aging Scottish mother who lives with her adult daughter. 'We're like a married couple, except that we're mother and daughter', begins the daughter, Gloria. With May in the early stages of Alzheimer's, the pair navigates through life as if they are on an extended vacation, not quite knowing where they are headed. But as each day becomes more of a struggle, Gloria decides to uproot them and tak...

  • ABOUT
  • BIO
THE AUGUST YEARS OF MAY AND GLORIA is an intimate documentary about an aging and feisty mother-daughter pair who live together, May (82), with Alzheimer's Disease, her caregiving daughter, Gloria (59). May and Gloria decided to move in together for the long haul after May’s husband passed away three years ago. Originally from Scotland, they live with May’s bird, Cheekie, in a little house on a hill, in a small Canadian town outside of Toronto. They don’t have much money, and Gloria works three days a week as a cook to support them. With May in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, the pair navigates through life as if they are on an extended vacation, not knowing where life will lead them. But as each day becomes more of a struggle, Gloria decides to uproot them and take her mother home to Scotland.
Maureen Judge’s recent feature documentary, 17 And Life Doesn’t Wait, explores the hopes and dreams of three teen girls. Nominated by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television for Best Editing, it’s a companion to her documentary on twenty-somethings, My Millennial Life, winner of multiple awards, including an Academy of Canadian Cinema’s Canadian Screen Award (CSA) for Best Documentary Program. My Millennial Life’s online platform was also selected for inclusion in the prestigious IDFA DocLab - Cross Platform Projects. Previous work includes the observational trilogy exploring themes of love, betrayal, and acceptance in parent/adult-child relationships: Unveiled: The Mother Daughter Relationship, honoured with a CSA/Genie Award for Best Short Documentary; In My Parents’ Basement; and Mom’s Home, nominated for two CSA/Gemini Awards. Judge produced and directed the award-winning Living Dolls, a bittersweet look at the world of doll collectors, and was the producer of the NFB co-production, FLicKeR, winner of the Hot Docs Special Jury Prize for Canadian Feature Documentary. She directed the Chris Award-winning film, And We Knew How to Dance: Women and WWI, created the critically acclaimed television doc series, Family Secrets, and co-created the Bravo! series, Heart of a Poet. Judge earned an M.A. in Cinema Studies from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, ('82), is a past Board Member of W.I.F.T. Toronto, and a past Executive Board Member of the Documentary Organization of Canada.