Otilia Babara / Moldova, France, Netherlands, Belgium / 2022 / 73′ / Romanian | Italian subtitles

In the first decade of the 1990s, many women left Moldova to provide for their families. Unable to return home, they found a peculiar way to stay in touch: by sending large cardboard boxes filled with gifts and food they could only dream of in those days. In return, their children would send them videotapes. This exchange has become a ritual among thousands of families. The cameras and gifts allowed these mothers and children to share glimpses of their realities while being separated.
Through these intimate private archives, the film paints the fragility of family ties through the eyes of a generation of mothers and daughters forced to live apart in order to survive. In doing so, it portrays a post-Soviet country trapped at a turning point in history. A country whose women were unknowingly charged with leading the transition from communism to capitalism.

Editing Pierpaolo Filomeno
Sound design Mark Glynne
Producer Hanne Phlypo
Co-Producers Simone van den Broek, Christine Camdessus, Otilia Babara
Archives Archives Moldova’s Independance (1991) Vlad Druck

Otilia Babara
Otilia Babara is a Moldovan documentary filmmaker. She currently lives in Brussels. She holds a diploma in documentary filmmaking from the European Docnomads master’s program (Belgium, Hungary, Portugal) and was selected as a fellow at the Berlinale Talents in 2013. She directed and produced the short films Irene (2015), which was selected for several international film festivals, and Women on Canvas (2009), which won awards at the Astra Film Festival and the Chronograf Film Festival. She is attracted to those who usually go unnoticed. Her films expose big wounds hidden in small details and she is fascinated by the untold stories of women.