Something Familiar

“The hope of finding a mother has long disappeared. What should I do with all this longing?” Mihaela and filmmaker Rachel Taparjan travel to Romania, to the orphanage where they were both adopted. As Mihaela questions her identity, Rachel retraces her own painful past, leading to an encounter far removed from what she had imagined. To remain a little longer in the realm of possibility—and perhaps find clarity or catharsis—the director casts actresses to embody her mother. Through filmmaking that becomes both investigation and gesture of care, the film explores absence, trauma, and family bonds. Can the act of self-narration rewrite inherited family stories?