Saturday, March 23 / 8:45 pm / Ottawa Art Gallery

Program: Motherland, Lazaro’s Daughter, Q&A with Gustavo Fallas
Guest: Gustavo Fallas, director of Lazaro’s Daughter

Feature presentation \

memory \ journalism \ history

Ana Casasola, a prominent Costa Rican television journalist, is in the midst of investigating a terrorist attack that claimed her father's life four decades ago in a bombing incident on the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. After reviewing video footage taken at the moment of the explosion, and following the lead that there might be living witness to what happened, she embarks on a journey to the location where the tragic events unfolded 40 years ago. Along the river near the Nicaraguan border, Ana encounters the enigmatic figure of Eliécer, an old man who may have been present, but there is uncertainty about this as his memory is faulty. The more she investigates, the more Ana must confront and come to terms with the personal, political, and historical complexities of both her father’s life and those dangerous times in early 1980s Central America. An intelligent and assured psychological thriller, Lazaro’s Daughter captured six awards at the 2023 Ícaro International Film Festival, including Best Screenplay, Best Direction, and Best Fiction Feature Film.

- Tom McSorley

Short film \

Motherland

2023 / 24 minutes / Ontario
Director: Jasmin Mozaffari
Language: English, Farsi

It’s 1979, the early days of the Iran Hostage crisis, and Babak is trying to juggle the needs of his family back home while preparing to meet his fiancée’s parents for the first time.

Winner of Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF, Jasmin Mozaffari’s Motherland deftly navigates the complexities of living in the diaspora, capturing the feeling of being caught between homelands old and new, and what happens when that new home views you as its enemy.