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Mama arbeitet im Westen – Eine Kindheit in Polen

Documentary Film
Germany,
Norway,
Poland
2014
58 minutes

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Anita Rehoff Larsen, Tone Grøttjord
Åse Svenheim Drivenes
Eirik Myhr
Michał Jarosiński, Jacek Gruszka
Åse Svenheim Drivenes
Håkon Lammetun, Petter Fagerlund, Bartosz Idzi
Katja Wildermuth
Kuba is 13 years old, his brother Mikołaj is seven. Kuba wakes his brother up, asks him to eat breakfast, the boy refuses. They go out to together to buy some crisps and walk home hand in hand. At night they sit at home and play computer games. There’s something missing in this daily routine: where are the adults?
Kuba’s and Mikołaj’s parents are not in the same country as their sons. Their father works in Scotland, their mother in Austria, while the sons are waiting in Poland for one of them to come home. At school Kuba is not allowed to tell that the two boys are alone, and the construction seems indeed to be tottering only when Kuba reaches his limits and behaves conspicuously.
The film is a disconcerting demonstration of how responsibilities have shifted with the labour markets and how economic problems can lead to passive violence against the weakest members of our society.