It all started ten years ago when he filmed the birth of his nephew Mateo. Since then, Gastón Solnicki has taken his camera to all family reunions – whether it’s everyday meetings, a family vacation or a high Jewish holiday. The film revolves around his father Victor, the patriarch who earned the wealth of this newly rich Argentine middle class family and now, at old age, is forced to watch his daughter’s marriage fail and his family’s social status crumble.
The familiarity makes a protagonist of Solnicki’s camera and allows the audience to experience moments of intimacy as intensely as arguments and family crises. In this complex and unadorned portrait of his family, the director also narrates a story of flight, a new start and rise in society. Gastón Solnicki cleverly combines his own material with old Super 8 and video material from the family archive and transcends the genre of the home movie in a gripping family epic encompassing four generations, overshadowed by the Holocaust even today.
– Paulo de Carvalho