This article will demonstrate how the mise - en - scène of the German film Madonnen by Maria Speth (2007) reflects maternal regret by creating a visual discontinuity and/or distance between mother and children. In addition, the iconography as well as the camera work will bring into question a German society that generally celebrates a st rong myth of motherhood as a woman’s ultimate fulfillment. The taboo on discussing maternal regret in Germany has recently been broken: Orna Donath (2015, p. 362) and Christina Mundlos (2016, p. 14) argue that it is important to distinguish between the lov e of mothers for their children, which they definitely feel, and the aversion to the role of being a mother.