Family Business

Director
Christiane Bochner

Country

Year
2015

Duration
89 min

Languages

Subtitles
Arabic/English

Anne from Bochum in Germany is eighty-eight years old; she reigns over her kingdom from the sofa. Her husband passed away recently and it was only then that her daughters realised what he had been successfully covering up: Anne is suffering from dementia. She can‘t live by herself anymore. Meanwhile, Jowita‘s family has been living on the construction site of what is to be their future home in Lubin, Poland for years. The kitchen is missing, the bedrooms are yet to be plastered, their 13-year old daughter wants to have her own room. They are out of money and Jowita is desperate to get a job. This seemingly perfect, win-win situation brings both families together. Jowita is employed to provide full-time care for Anne to take the pressure off her two working daughters. But the old lady continues to lose her grip on reality and finds it hard to make sense of Jowita‘s presence in her life. The two women don‘t seem to understand each other nor like one another much. The days grow long and tedious for Jowita as she is stuck in the old woman‘s routine, far away from her own family.