Atlanta Jewish Film Festival – Mama

Understated but penetrating in observational power, this intimate drama follows a migrant Polish housekeeper whose years working in Israel have slowly eroded the family she thought her sacrifice would protect. After long service as a live-in domestic aide for an affluent household on Israel’s coast, Mila returns to her modest Eastern village to find her marriage frayed by distance and a daughter moving beyond her influence. Long-buried tensions rise, exposing the gulf between the stability she worked to provide abroad and the fragile emotional landscape awaiting her at home. With restrained direction and finely honed craft, Evgenia Dodina’s piercing performance underpins this Cannes Camera d’Or nominee, a poignant exploration of duty, loss, and the personal cost of building a life across borders.