We meet ornithologist Anna in 1994 just as genocide is raging in Rwanda, perpetrated by the majority Hutus against the Tutsis. Anna manages to save the daughter of a colleague whose family has been murdered, and she takes her to Poland. But the woman returns to Rwanda to visit the graves of her loved ones. The director originally worked on the movie with her husband Krzysztof Krauze (My Nikifor – Crystal Globe, KVIFF 2005), but after his death in 2014 she eventually finished this challenging picture alone.

Fresh out of jail, Anita is supposed to control her aggression. Physical warmth, grief and intimacy. Almost without plot, the film draws on light, colour, style, dance and great music to enter a group of friends with someone missing at its heart.

Gabriel, aged 10, lives in a comfortable ex-pat neighborhood in Burundi, his ‘small country’. Gabriel is a normal kid, happy, carefree and having adventures with his friends and little sister. Then in 1993, tensions in neighboring Rwanda spill over, threatening his family and his innocence.