Family Affairs

Sunday June 8 | 15.30 hrs | World premiere

Mama Blessing
Mama Blessing is a young mother who fled from Nigeria after being threatened by a Mafioso voodoo sect. In Holland she roams the streets with her children. The children are sick and underfed and are placed in a foster home. There they discover that Blessing’s son Daniel has a serious developmental disorder. As a condition for receiving the necessary care and treatment, he needs to be covered by health insurance. This means that the children need to stay in the foster home. The children are caught up in the wheels of the welfare state, while Blessing is left to her own devices. Bit by bit the children estrange from her. The mother is desperately looking for a way to regain the custody over her own children.

Roswitha Eshuis (The Netherlands) | The Netherlands, Austria | 2008 | 40 min | English subtitles

camera: Roswitha Eshuis
sound: Jaim & Joel Sahuleka
editor: Harro Henkemans
producer: Jaffie Hulsenbeck

contact: Roswitha Eshuis
t: + 31 624996101
e: roswitha@xs4all.nl
w: www.rose8a.nl

Roswitha studied Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam (1994-2001) and Visual Ethnography at the University of Leiden (1996). Afterwards she made the documentary Groningers (2005).