When film-maker Pankaj and lawyer Sunaina got married, they hire Cecilia, a tribal woman from West Bengal-India, as a housekeeper. Four months later, Cecilia gets a call that her daughter has been found dead in a house in Delhi where she was working. In a country where thousands of children get trafficked every year and many are never found, Cecilia decides to fight for justice with the help of her employers. As the trio battle corruption at all levels, they find themselves navigating a complex network of police, traffickers, judges, lawyers, villagers and family members. Cecilia faces strong opposition from her own relatives and villagers who urge her to drop the case, but she comes through as a strong woman who fights for her rights and her daughter’s memory by refusing to let her become yet another figure in a statistic. Told as a first-person narrative, the film is a poignant yet intimate investigative documentary which sheds light on the growing problem of child labour and child-trafficking in India, as well as on the system of social privileges and gender prejudices which make it all possible.
AUDIO: Hindi, Bengali, English
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
awards and festivals
2015 - International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Olanda