Phantom Pains

Before her death, my grandmother suffered from phantom pains, a physical echo of the deeper loss that shaped her life. Through intimate and sometimes humorous conversations with my mother, aunt and sister I try to understand the gifted woman she once was, and how the loss of her son in the Holocaust redirected her path toward survival, longing and even criminal behaviors. Through family memories and multigenerational dialogue, the film explores how her trauma shaped her life and the lives of the women who came after her.