‘Mother and Child’ building buzz

Movie: "Mother and Child"

When: Opening Friday at Colonnade

Cast: Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Jimmy Smits, Cherry Jones

Director: Rodrigo Garcia

The story: This drama focuses on a 50-year-old woman, the daughter she gave up for adoption 35 years earlier -- and another woman out to adopt a child of her own.

The buzz: The Academy Awards are a long way off, but this film festival favorite (which has played Sundance and Toronto, among others) has already started to build Oscar buzz for Bening's performance as a mother haunted by the daughter she gave up for adoption. And director Garcia ("Nine Lives") continues to follow in his father's storytelling footsteps; he's the son of Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose works have inspired dozens of big- and small-screen adaptations.