This documentary deals with the experience over a five-year period of a Filipino migrant worker in Ireland, Noemi Barredo, and her daughter Gracelle. Noemi is living in a tiny Dublin flat with another Filipino woman. The action switches back and forth to life in her home town of Babatngon in the Phillipines, where her sister and parents are raising Gracelle and her brother.

The directors take a hands-off approach, letting the family themselves tell the story through their actions. The languages spoken vary from English to Tagalog to the local language in Babatngon, with subtitles used. As Noemi herself said at a question and answer session after the premiere, this reminds people that there are other languages in the world than English.

When Noemi visits home, she dispenses gifts like visiting royalty, on top of the regular remittances she send home to support not just her immediate family, but also some of the extended family. At one point, she sponsors the building of a fine house for her family, while watching the construction on video-tape in her tiny Dublin flat.

Apart from a choir and a migrant rights group, most of her life in Dublin revolves around work and her flat, with the imperative being to save money to send home (for example, she is often depicted intently texting). The directors switch effortlessly back and forth between locations, giving the impression that Noemi is in both places at once – and in a sense, she is.

While Noemi's life is interesting in itself, the starker emotional content – and the real achievement of this piece – is in the frank honesty of her daughter Gracelle. She talks about how she didn't see her mother for the first few years of her life, and didn't recognise her when she arrived at the door – as well as how she didn't want to talk to her on the phone and pretended to be out whenever she phoned.

Noemi's unselfish decision to support her family from abroad has kept them above the poverty line, but it appeared to have been at the expense of her relationship with her daughter. Finally, when Gracelle is a teenager, Noemi avails of a family reunification programme to bring her to Dublin.

While Gracelle is distant from her mother at first - feeling awkward about sharing the bed in the flat - a rapport visibly grows between them and by the end they have a much warmer relationship.

However, Gracelle's vision of life in Ireland as a paradise for the lucky ones is dimmed somewhat, as she sees at first-hand the sacrifices her mother has been making for the rest of the family all these years. She even says that those back in the Phillipines are the lucky ones, who only have to receive the money and spend it.

Cast Credits: (alpha order): (include): Gracelle Barredo, Noemi Barredo.

Company Credits: Directors - Alan Grossman & Áine O'Brien. Other credits (not received)

END

(c) Colman Higgins 2010

reviewed Friday 19 February 2010 / Cineworld 9, Dublin, Ireland

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012

www.fringereport.com