Film Image
Promise and Unrest
Alan Grossman & Áine O’Brien
Producer: FOMACS in association with Ned Kelly Pictures
2010
Color
79 minutes
Ireland
English/Waray/Tagalog
English subtitles
Trailer and More
Press Packet

Promise and Unrest

Through struggle and sacrifice migrant women often stand as sole breadwinners in the transnational family. Separated from her daughter Gracelle at 7 months, Noemi Barredo left the Philippines for work in Malaysia before arriving in Ireland in 2000. Filmed over a five-year period, PROMISE AND UNREST is an intimate portrayal of a migrant woman working as a caregiver and long-distance mother, while assuming the responsibility of providing for her extended family in the Philippines.

PROMISE AND UNREST, winner of the Best Film Award at the ETNOFILm3 Festival in Croatia, captures the everyday intricacies of Noemi and Gracelle’s relationship, their reunion in Ireland through the `right to family reunification‘, and the beginnings of a domestic life together in the same country for the first time. Narrated by Noemi and Gracelle in Waray and English with English subtitles.
Pricing & Ordering

Please contact twn@twn.org for availability and pricing for this Title.

Reviews
"There is something quite special about the mother-daughter relationship at the emotional core of this visually impressive film…" - Luke McManus, RTÉ Radio 1
"A gut-wrenchingly powerful film." - Cambridge Film Festival
"A thought-provoking film with strong and striking images… the filmmakers have captured the human complexities of migration and I can understand why many migrants would say ‘that’s my story.’" - John McMahon, Educational Programmes RTE
"An emotional rendering of the phenomenon of transnational women… this film is sure to hit home for many in the Pilipina/o diaspora." - Paola Rodelas, BakitWhy, Filipino American Lifestyle
"An extraordinary film... Filmed over five years, it traces Gracelle’s life in a small Philippine village and Noemi’s life in Dublin, enabling them to be honest about the pain of separation, the hardship of the work, and the anger of a young girl, left to the care of her aunt and grandparents." - Dr Ronit Lentin, Trinity College Dublin
Alan Grossman and Áine O’Brien’s film Promise and Unrest is a powerful documentary about the life of Noemi Barredo, a Filipina woman who works as a caregiver for the elderly in Dublin, Ireland... Moving between Ireland and the Philippines, the film visually captures the vast divides that define Noemi’s transnational existence. While she works abroad to support her family, her own children are left in the care of her sister and parents in the Philippines such that her parenting, as poignantly depicted in the film, becomes a mediated experience resting on access to technological connectivity... The lives and labor presented... will jumpstart a robust dialogue in the classroom about global migration, labor markets, patriarchy, and women’s laboring bodies. - Radha S. Hegde, Films for the Feminist Classroom
Awards

• Best Film Award, ETNOFILm3, Croatia, 2011
Screenings
• World Premiere, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Official Selection, 2010
• European Association of Social Anthropology, Ireland, 2010
• DMZ Korean Documentary International Film Festival, 2010
• Cambridge Film Festival, 2010
• Tel Aviv Cinemateque, 2010
• International Film Festival ETNOFILM ČADCA, Slovakia, 2010
• San Diego Asian Film Festival, 2010
• Waterford Film Festival, Ireland, 2010
• Days of Ethnographic Film Festival, Slovenia, 2011
• Women Make Waves Migration Film Festival, Taiwan, 2011
• Art-Kino Croatia, 2011
• International Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA) Film Festival, Scotland, 2011
• Days of Ethnographic Cinema, Russian Research Institute of the Cultural and National Heritage, 2011
• Taiwan Ethnographic Film Festival, 2011
• Athens Ethnographic Film Festival, 2011
• Jean Rouch International Film Festival, 2011
• Capital Irish Film Festival, Washington DC 2011
More Films by Subject and Genre
Asian Pacific Island Studies
Asian Pacific Islander Diaspora
Documentaries
Family
Human Rights
Immigration & Exile
Labor Studies & Workers' Rights
Women's Studies
Youth Collection
Support Us
Contact Us twn@twn.org
Call Us 1 (212) 947-9277
  • Third World Newsreel
  • • 545 Eighth Avenue, Suite 550, New York, NY 10018
  • • Telephone 212-947-9277

TWN acknowledges that in New York we are on the unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape, Canarsie, Shinecock, and Munsee peoples and challenges the harm that continues to be inflicted upon Indigenous and People of Color communities here and abroad, which is why we all need to be part of the struggle for rights, equality and justice.

TWN is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Color Congress, MOSAIC, New York Community Trust, Peace Development Fund, Humanities NY, Ford Foundation, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and individual donors.