A filmmaker’s 20-year chronicle of three generations striving for economic survival on their land, from post-war pioneers to an uncertain future.
Returning to her childhood’s red soil, a filmmaker resumes a family chronicle unfinished for twenty years. Drawn back by her nephew’s death—a loss that shattered the family and forced his siblings to quit school—she mirrors her nieces and nephews’ youthful uncertainty as they drift into adulthood while parents struggle for economic survival.
Weaving two decades of archives with the present coffee harvest, the film follows a Catholic family among those who fled northern poverty for post-war New Economic Zones. It begins with the elders, pioneers who cleared wild terrain by hand; then the second generation—the filmmaker’s siblings—are venturing deeper into the forest as market reforms turn land into a volatile commodity. Youth aren’t haunted by past hunger; instead, the dream of staying on the land is priced out of reach. The filmmaker seeks to bridge the silences between three generations, confronting her guilt as the only one among her siblings with the privilege of education.
Now landowners, the family relies on migrant pickers, sharing fellowship in makeshift shelters during the harvest months. As the season concludes, the youngest generation repeats the filmmaker’s history, migrating toward urban boarding houses—a future severed from the land.
