Family Business (working title)

documentary by Christiane Büchner

(in pre-production)

In Germany, a daughter can no longer care for her mother. In Poland, a mother leaves her children, to take care of the old woman. A daily event these days in Europe, one which changes the lives of two families forever. The documentary “Family Business” will tell of an exchange of feelings. Of love, work, duty and guilt.

The film begins in the Polish branch of a German Agency for domestic workers. The woman is accompanied by her family. She, her husband and their children sit closely together in the small office. She has to answer the question from the man behind the desk: is she prepared to work in Germany? The wage prospects are good. She doesn‘t find it difficult to care for an elderly person. She will be able to travel home every three months. The same evening, the family decides: she should go. Somehow they will manage. At the same time another woman also has to make a decision. She sits in an office of the same agency in Germany. She is looking for a woman to care for her mother, who can no longer live alone, since she fell and injured herself. It is difficult for the woman to let her mother be cared for by a stranger. She feels guilty: for her mother, her children, her job. But her whole family relies on her. She has to decide what is best for her mother. So she wants to know from the agency what life is like, with a woman from Poland.