Synopsis
This autobiographical first film is a heartbreaking chronicle of a family struggling with rootlessness and mental illness. When she learns that her brother Juan has returned to Québec after spending some time in their birthplace, Mexico, Karina Garcia Casanova decides to film him. Her purpose is clear from the start: she is not interested in home movies, she is going to make a real film. And her project quickly takes a dramatic turn when Juan suffers a relapse into a desperate bout of depression and paranoia. Here, cinema is nothing less than an essential tool for reconstructing the self.
A word from Tënk
Karina Garcia Casanova takes a brave, intimate and poetic look at her brother and mother's struggle with mental health and rootlessness. The journey throws the viewer into an experience that is shattering. From the onset the camera reveals a delicate and fragile inter-relationship between Karina, her brother Juan and her mother Victoria, slowly revealing the relationships between them and the consequences of emigrating to Quebec from Mexico. The outcome is a rare and honest portrait of the price her family paid in uprooting from their homeland while struggling with mental health. Where does one put the blame? How does one find answers? Karina does not try to educate us, rather she invites us in. She poetically and dramatically allows the viewer to slowly experience with her as if the camera was her only redemption to confront, understand, save what is left. Delicately and honestly photographed, Karina edits a narrative line that interweaves time and space, past and present. We slowly understand her search without judgement. It is not a search for answers but a search to heal. The outcome is a complex and delicate journey that is deeply cinematic in its honesty.
Danae Elon
Filmmaker
