Irish filmmaker Sam Jones, in his first feature documentary, welcomes the newfound friendship of US citizen Gabe, and follows him to a remote Russian village in search of the mother he and his sister were taken from in childhood when they were adopted into America. What Gabe finds is not the loving parent he hoped for, but an alcoholic, a woman steeped in lies, darkness and death. With apparent arrogance and insensitivity, he determines to rehabilitate her but as the film progresses we learn of Gabe’s own traumas and this deeply unsettling story of friendship, adoption, addiction and identity takes ever darker turns.

Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn