A film by / Un film de : Stephen Frears
With / Avec: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan

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After a convent education that left her ignorant of the facts of life, Lee fell pregnant in 1952 and gave birth to a son at Sean Ross Abbey, a Catholic home for unmarried mothers in Tipperary.Three years later, the nuns made her give up the boy, to be sold for adoption in America. Lee, who was forced to sign a document promising “never to seek to know” what happened to her son, later moved to England where she married and had a family. In 2004, she met Sixsmith, and together they embarked on a remarkable quest to track down her long-lost son.They learned that the boy, whose birth name was Anthony, had been renamed Michael Hess, and grew up to become a lawyer and Republican politician in the 1980s. But he was also a closeted homosexual with AIDS. Lee discovered that, with his time running out, her son had traveled to Ireland to plead with the convent to reveal the identity of his mother so he could meet her before he died, but the nuns refused.

Irlande, 1952. Philomena Lee, encore adolescente, tombe enceinte. Rejetée par sa famille, elle est envoyée au couvent de Roscrea. En compensation des soins prodigués par les religieuses avant et pendant la naissance, elle travaille à la blanchisserie, et n’est autorisée à voir son fils, Anthony, qu’une heure par jour. À l’âge de trois ans, il lui est arraché pour être adopté par des Américains. Pendant des années, Philomena essaiera de le retrouver. Quand, cinquante ans plus tard, elle rencontre Martin Sixmith, journaliste désabusé, elle lui raconte son histoire, et ce dernier la persuade de l’accompagner aux Etats-Unis à la recherche d’Anthony.