A filmmaker hastily prepares for the arrival of her adopted daughter from earthquake-ravaged Haiti. A visual artist yearns to rediscover the inspiration she'd had before her mental breakdown. A black woman sits in a log cabin with the body of her dead husband, freshly delivered by his white coworkers. In these interconnected stories, Sally Cooper explores motherhood, creativity, race and love through the lens of a day in the life of each of these three women – Rudie in Hamilton in 2010, Agnes in New Mexico in 1974, Ellen near Muskoka in 1870 – women separated by decades yet linked in ways they will never know. As these stories begin to weave together like a communal tapestry, they explore what it means to be a woman, a mother and an artist, and how this meaning changes over time. Evocative and introspective, With My Back to the World is about how different women find faith in themselves under extraordinary circumstances.
