On Wednesday, May 14, Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay embarked on “a dream come true” — she is taking her feature film directorial debut to the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The dream is made even more poignant by the fact that her film, titled My Mom Jayne, is a beautiful documentary on her mother, actress Jayne Mansfield, who was killed in a terrible car accident that Hargitay survived.
On Instagram, Hargitay posted a photo of herself boarding a plane bound for France and wrote, “All aboard for a dream come true…. Taking my Mama to the Cannes Film Festival @festivaldecannes @mymomjayne 💕🇫🇷🎥🎬🎞️🎞️🎞️.”
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According to the HBO press release, My Mom Jayne follows Hargitay as she “seeks to know, understand, and embrace her mother for the first time.”
It continues, “Through intimate interviews and a collection of never-before-seen photos and home movies, she grapples with her mother’s public and private legacy and discovers the layers and depth of who Jayne was, not only to her audience but to those who were closest to her.”
In 1967, when Mansfield was just 34 years old, the blonde bombshell actress was traveling in a car with her then-boyfriend Sam Brody, a driver named Ronald Harrison, and three of her children — Mickey Jr., 8, Zoltan, 6, and Mariska, 3. The three children were asleep in the back seat, which is how they managed to survive the accident with minor injuries.
The car was traveling between Biloxi, Mississippi, and New Orleans, and it ran into the rear of a tractor-trailer that had slowed down considerably from the speed limit because of an approaching truck that was flashing a red light due to spraying insecticides. The crash sheared off the top of the car, and all three adults in the front seat were killed instantly.
My Mom Jayne is making its global debut at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival before being released by HBO in June.
