Separations
Director Andrea Seligmann Silva, Mieke Bal
Countries
Duration 83 min
Synopsis
In this autobiographical film, a diasporic Brazilian family is reunited in São Paulo. All five siblings, at one time or another, have established themselves abroad. While exploring the reasons behind this connection to the foreign in her family, Andréa, a filmmaker living in Amsterdam, interviews the members of her family. They all evoke a psychotic crisis their mother had five years ago. So Andréa begins to focus her inquiry on what took place then and on the traumatic events of a generation ago. Edith, Andréa’s Jewish mother, was three years old when her parents escaped from Nazi Germany in 1939. The question of the migratory now turns both backwards and forwards, and danger becomes as potent a motive as attraction to foreign places.
In this autobiographical film, a diasporic Brazilian family is reunited in São Paulo. All five siblings, at one time or another, have established themselves abroad. While exploring the reasons behind this connection to the foreign in her family, Andréa, a filmmaker living in Amsterdam, interviews the members of her family. They all evoke a psychotic crisis their mother had five years ago. So Andréa begins to focus her inquiry on what took place then and on the traumatic events of a generation ago. Edith, Andréa’s Jewish mother, was three years old when her parents escaped from Nazi Germany in 1939. The question of the migratory now turns both backwards and forwards, and danger becomes as potent a motive as attraction to foreign places.