Wheelchair accessible | In Romanian; with English and descriptive subtitles
£9.50 (concession) / £12.25 (full price)

If the ticket or other costs, such as childcare or transport, make this screening unaffordable, please see details of our Audience Access Fund.

In its early days of independence, Moldova was plunged into economic hardship and uncertainty. With few opportunities at home, thousands of women left the country to work abroad and provide for their families. Many would remain away for years, unable to return. Having grown up with very little, they took pride in sending back boxes filled with coveted Western goods. In return, they would receive videotapes of family celebrations and glimpses of everyday life. The camera became a surrogate for the absent mother, an attempt at maintaining a relationship across distance. Drawing entirely on private family archives, Otilia Babara constructs a sensitive collective portrait of a generation of mothers and daughters separated by migration – revealing, simultaneously, a larger political transformation.

Content notes: family separation, discussion of trauma

Access notes: archival VHS footage

Curated by Dylan Beck and Ania Wieczorkowska