When my mother tells me stories of her younger age, I see in her not only a mother but a 20-year-old girl with own dreams, concerns, and adventures. She talks about her friends often — Elya and Lyolya. She has spoken about those turbulent 1990s when they organized a photo shoot in a dormitory and sent the pictures to foreigners whose addresses they found in newspapers. In the end, Elya got married and moved to Australia. My mom meets her again after ten years.

This film is a touching conversation with my mother recorded in Mykola Hryshko National Botanical Garden in Kyiv where I grew up. I often asked myself how it feels to leave everything you love and start a new life in a place you only saw on a map. This is the story of a woman’s friendship that lasts despite the time, distance, and life challenges. This narration is about the past and the present — about migration, the search for happiness, and time-tested relationships. This is an attempt to understand how dreams intertwine with reality, and how life changes us and preserves what is meant to be unchanged.