WHEN MOTHER COMES HOME FOR CHRISTMAS... is a film about transnational migration, womens' labour and displaced identities.

Josephine is an illegal migrant worker from Sri Lanka who lives in Greece taking full-time care of little Isadora. Josephine's own children have been left to a less fortunate fate in the home country, bartered between reluctant relatives and orphanages.

Finally Josephine gets her much-awaited work visa, and after an absence of eight years, is able to travel to Sri Lanka to visit her children. The meeting lasts a brief month. The camera travels with Josephine, capturing the complicated feelings of loss and longing, expectation, desire and disappointment that are the inevitable companions to this transitory union.

Researched, Directed and Edited by Nilita Vachani
Produced by Vangelis Kalambakas and Nilita Vachani
Cinematography: Vangelis Kalambakas
Sound: K. Nandha Kumar and Costas Poulantzas

16mm, documentary, 109 min, in Sinhala and English with English subtitles.
A FilmSixteen production for ZDF and the Greek Film Centre with a grant from the Hubert Bals Fund. Germany/Greece, 1996