“You can’t seem to move forward, can you?” her mother asks. Twenty years after an unfinished film, the filmmaker is still pursuing her creative callings, confronting her roots, familial expectations and silences that have shaped her. An intimate essay about identity and belonging, set in a small rural Slovakian community where her creativity and sexuality clash with strict expectations of womanhood. Through personal archives, home movies and animation, she gently attempts to untangle what holds her back. Can she move forward without damaging the roots that are hers too?

Anca Păunescu

When Quang’s sister Mai becomes pregnant out of the blue, one thing is clear to him: this new chapter in their lives will change the family forever. He picks up his camera. He works on the film on the film for seven years, collecting photos, diaries and telephone conversations. Using a DIY scrapbook aesthetic, he weaves the present together with memories and images from the past. We travel with Quang back to his youth in the northern Vietnamese province of Lào Cai near the Chinese border. Nine years his senior, his sister Mai introduces him to cool music and trendy fashion, while his mother Cuc dreams of a traditional family. This is a dream that is slipping ever further out of reach: her son is gay and her daughter is living with schizophrenia. As an adult, Quang moves to Hanoi, where he can finally feel free, and his distance from his family grows. Years later, Baby Guava brings Quang closer to his family again. The child brings them together, but also lays old tensions bare. Different ideas about what constitutes a “normal” life have long been met with silence. With brutal honesty and intimate, sometimes uncomfortable insights, Quang looks at his family and the unspoken pain and resentment that stand between them. And he also shows the hopes and efforts at finding understanding and acceptance despite everything in order to provide Baby Guava with a loving environment.

Seggen Mikael

The small kitchen table around which director Kamila Serwicka, her two sisters and their mother Agnieszka squeeze themselves has something symbolic about it: the space they each have while living together is restricted and somehow shrunk down; expansion is bitterly needed. Yet this crampedness also allows an intimacy to be experienced, a solidarity that supports and protects. In “Blossoming”, Serwicka creates a portrait of her family, who were profoundly affected by the alcoholism of the father and husband for many years. The tension when he enters the room is tangible – they all keep their distance in an attempt to shield themselves from verbal violence and emotional manipulation. Yet the film doesn’t remain in this oppressive status quo: when the addict leaves, a transition process begins which throws up sensitive questions. How was it possible to ensure such a situation for so long? Why did Agnieszka never separate from her husband? How will things now be? Over the course of five years, the Serwicka women expand their gaze, find new perspectives and standpoints – and new connections with each other, also in religious rituals. “Blossoming” bears witness to a both a challenging escape and a reawakening long overdue. A reminder that nothing has to stay the same.

Carolin Weidner