“In 1986 Sternberg completed ‘A Trilogy’ – a moving and complex work which philosophically narrates the separation of mother and son. Composed of a number of apparently separate and discrete elements – Sternberg brings them together in a masterful weave of archaic ritual, home movie, dramatic interlude and speculative address. At the heart of this intertextual weave is the filmmaker herself and her teenaged son. As he reaches the age of consent, and prepares to make his final deposition of leave taking, this film is a reminder of all that has passed between them, and hints at what might lie ahead.” – Mike Hoolboom “It deals with basic philosophical issues of memory, knowing and consciousness by juxtaposing different levels of experience: the everyday life in the family kitchen, the mythic and historical context of culture itself, the evolution of perception at different times of life.” – Gayle Young, Musicworks “Initially ‘A Trilogy’ seems to be composed of fragments. It begins with an endless shot of a man running along a road, moves to the elegant middle-class interiors of a renovated kitchen and then shifts its focus to a young boy running up a hill, a place marked by a neolithic ceremonial mound, a place of primordial mysteries. Images are layered on each other, provoking ideas of separation, the mother goddess, of water… and perhaps an accident? Constructed around absences it ends with a series of questions about life and our perception of the way film constructs narratives.” – Kay Armatage, Toronto Festival of Festivals Catalogue, 1985