A Film by Limor Pinhasov & Yaron Kaftori
(Israel, 2007, 75 Minutes, Color, Hebrew/ Spanish, English subtitles)



A story which demonstrates the extremes Mothers go to in order to save their families – sometimes saving and losing them in the same act.

In 1990, 22-year-old Marisa Villozial left her 3-year-old son and her infant daughter with her parents in Bolivia, and traveled oversee to look for a job in the West. She spent fifteen years doing hard menial labor in Israel, sending her pay home, following the growth of her children only through occasional phone calls.

In February 2005, Marisa returned to Bolivia to reunite with her children and family and tried to become a real mother. Marisa’s return to Cochabamba was a very emotional and upsetting one.

Her children, now 16 and 18, were quiet ,apathetic, not to say hostile toward her. They both insisted on calling her Auntie and not Mother, and refused to listen or spend time with her. The house that was to have been built for her with the money she sent home, turned out to be only a skeleton of a house. With teary eyes she realized she was misled and that the money she’d sent to her father for the house had been squandered.

Her story is a real-life family drama that reflects powerful and painful global themes: poverty, preservation of culture, alienation. It is an individual story that is the most universal story of our times.   



AWARDS & FESTIVALS

 L'Alternativa - Barcelona Independent Film Festival
 Mediterranean Documentary Film Festival, Greece 
 New York International Latino Film Festival
 Krakow Film Festival, Poland
 Documenta Madrid Film Festival
 It's All True - International Film Festival, São Paulo
 Dok-Fest, Munich
 African Diaspora Film Festival, NY
 Dominican International Film Festival
 Watch Docs, Poland
 Amnesty International Film Festival
 Miami International Film Festival
 Worldfilm, Estonia