Motherland

Reeling from his parents’ recent divorce, 12-year-old Kovas is looking forward to getting away from it all on summer vacation away with his mother, Viktorija. She fled her native Lithuania decades ago, but now that the Iron Curtain has fallen, she wants to return to her childhood home, an idyllic estate about which Kovas has spent his whole life listening to her wax rhapsodic. She enlists her former lover, Romas, to escort them to the land she feels is her birthright, but their arrival holds surprises for both mother and son: Viktorija is dismayed to find the old homestead in tatters, occupied by another family, and Kovas is alarmed to discover that his overly nostalgic mother plans to remain in chaotic post-Soviet Lithuania in search of a fresh start. First-time feature director/writer Tomas Vengris sympathetically portrays a broken family who must decide, in the face of societal and personal upheaval, how far they are willing to pursue their dreams for renewal. (Denver International Film Festival)