Upon finally becoming a pregnant “choice” mom, Jen begins to be haunted by an uncanny dark family secret. Unexpectedly slipping into a time warp of the past, Jen needs to appease the ghost of her grandmother in order to save her unborn child.
Jen, a single tightly-wound investigative journalist in her 40s becomes pregnant and moves into her late grandmother’s suburban home to raise her child in peace. As she prepares the nursery and updates her will, cracks in her perfectly planned life begin to show. Her relationship with her distant mother, Debbie, is strained, especially when Debbie reacts coldly to the idea of guardianship.
While renovating, Jen experiences vivid, ghostly visions of her family’s past, including traumatic scenes involving her grandmother Rona, her infant mother Debbie, and a mysterious baby, later revealed to be Adele, Debbie’s long-lost sister. These visions trigger anxiety and insomnia, causing Jen to question her readiness for motherhood. When a trusted friend declines to become her baby’s guardian, Jen lashes out at Debbie, only to learn the truth: Adele died as a baby, a fact Debbie hid out of trauma and guilt.
Jen becomes obsessed with Adele’s story. Her research reveals Adele didn’t die young but was institutionalized at Willowbrook, a notorious mental hospital. As Jen relives scenes from the past through hallucinations from Rona’s perspective,she begins to suspect her visions are real memories passed down through generations. After a car accident and hospitalization, Debbie joins her daughter in uncovering the truth.
Together, they find Adele alive, living in a caring home on Long Island. Though developmentally disabled, Adele is thriving—shattering myths and deepening the emotional healing between the women. Jen gets tested and learns she carries a recessive gene linked to Adele’s condition, throwing her pregnancy into new uncertainty. When Adele unexpectedly dies, Jen spirals into mourning.
As Jen’s visions intensify. She relives Rona’s devastating choice to institutionalize Adele under social and medical pressure. We learn that Rona’s trauma was awakened by Jen’s pregnancy and nursery renovation. At Adele’s funeral, Jen and Debbie reconnect, but Jen goes into early labor and experiences a near-death vision. In this metaphysical space, Jen reunites Adele with Rona, offering both peace.
Jen awakens from her emergency C-section transformed. As she holds her baby girl, surrounded by memories of her mother, grandmother, and aunt, Jen embraces a new legacy of motherhood—marked not by control, but by love, vulnerability, and intergenerational healing.
Darya Zhuk left Minsk, Belarus at the age of 16 to study in the US. Six years later with a cum lade B.A. degree from Harvard University, Darya Zhuk started creating both narrative and documentary independent films. She is a proud honors graduate of Columbia MFA program in Directing. Films she wrote and directed have been selected to SXSW, Tarkovsky, Oaxaca, Atlanta, Palm Springs, Santa Fe Independent film festivals just to name a few. She received best female writer-director award from New York Women in Film and Television in 2015 and has been nominated for the best female director by Adrienne Shelly Foundation. She received special jury prize for her short “The Real American” at Listopad Film Festival in Minsk. Additionally, she is the winner of such prestigious film grants as New York State Council for the Arts, Panavision Emerging Filmmaker grant, and Interdisciplinary Council for the Art of Columbia University grants.
Producer - Sian Heder
