Across cultures, when a loved one dies we perform rituals around the remains. In the feature-length documentary A Place of Absence, Chilean-American filmmaker Marialuisa Ernst explores what happens when a person disappears without a trace.

She travels with the Caravan of Mothers on their annual 2,500-mile bus trek following the migrant route of their sons and daughters who vanished while trying to cross the US border. Highly organized, these 40 Central American women visit strip clubs and jails flashing laminated photos of their loved ones and go to mass graves demanding bones be exhumed for DNA testing. They fear their missing children’s horrible deaths under “the sun that burns” and at the brutal hands of human traffickers. They hope and pray to find them alive.  

There is no beginning or ending to the mothers’ grieving process. Director Marialuisa is no stranger to this specific grief called ambiguous loss. Her uncle disappeared during Argentina’s Dirty War, and for thirty years her mother has wondered what happened to him. A Place of Absence braids Marialuisa’s journey with the caravan and her own introspective journey into her family’s legacy of loss. 

In this deeply moving lyrical film, the roots connecting trees in a forest remind us of the invisible threads that trespass lines on a map, binding us together as human beings. 

We love, we lose, we search, we endure.