In 2016, Beth B completed her long-standing documentary film project about her mother, New York sculptor and painter Ida Applebroog. Call Her Applebroog is the complex portrait of an artist who preoccupies herself with her past. The sketches, paintings and diaries she has produced over many decades tell the story of a woman who found psychological and sexual freedom through her art. Now, aged over 80, she is prompted by the artistic and personal curiosity of her daughter to reappraise her own provocative early work.

»I made this film over the course of fifteen years. I hadn’t really intended to make a film about Ida. It was more like I was documenting her work. She really did not want to be filmed. She’s such a private person.
As time went on I started to realize this was my next passion project. I think it was only through the course of those many years that a different kind of trust developed. But still there were times when she got frightened. There was a time when she said, I want to be able to see it before it goes out. I want to be able to take something out if I don’t like it.
At first I said, sure. But I’ve never allowed anybody to do that. I realized I was editing and trying to mind-read her reaction at the same time. I wrote to her and said I really can’t make this film if I need your approval. Because then I’m not making the film from my point of view.
That’s really when the issue of trust loomed large for both of us. I said if you can’t trust me, who can you trust?«
– Beth B