In Mexico, people are still being kidnapped from the streets every day, and vanishing without a trace. Official figures put the number of victims at more than 130,000. One of them is the 8-year-old Brandon. In Tatiana Huezo’s heartbreaking Ausencias, his mother Lourdes recounts how she has never stopped searching for him.
Huezo made this short portrait in 2015, years after Brandon was taken away by unknown individuals, together with his father and two uncles. In voiceover, Lourdes, better known as Lulu, describes what happened that day and how she has carried on with her life ever since. Shots of clouded windows, swirling dust particles, and bare rooms reinforce the sense of exhaustion and helplessness in her voice.
What does the years-long absence of a child do to a mother? Will she ever stop dreaming about her little son? And should she feel guilty toward her daughter, who received less attention than Lulu would have wanted because of the pain she was enduring?
Stills
