Kiddo

Lying on a bunk bed in a children’s home, eleven year old Lu speaks with shining eyes about her mother Karina: she says she is a famous Hollywood actress, that she smells of oranges, that she talks to the stars and does her own stunts. The film does not say at the outset how much of this is true and does not belittle what the child says. The account does not draw the home as a picture of misfortune; it shows the daily order built there and the friendships too. The mother’s return turns the story into a journey. Along the road the distance opens between the picture Lu has made and the reality in front of her. The film declares nobody a bad mother or a rescuer. Rosa van Leeuwen and Frieda Barnhard appear in Zara Dwinger’s ninety two minute Dutch film, completed in 2024.