Separation

Families torn apart, borders crossed, boundaries broken… Permanent barriers or incentives to reunite?

When Elizabeth and her daughter Juliette return to Abidjan, Elizabeth’s priority is to deepen the bond between Juliette and her father Mehdi – who still lives there – and to improve her own relationship with him. But she finds he has not changed. He is still difficult to be with, and the tour of the country he arranges for them upon their arrival is fraught with problems.

Their troubles, however, soon take a different turn. By chance they uncover a child trafficking ring, whose perpetrators smuggle youngsters from neighbouring countries into Côte d’Ivoire. When Mehdi rescues a young Ghanaian girl, Adjoa, from a life of servitude or prostitution, Elizabeth takes her under her wing while Mehdi travels to Burkina Faso in search of her abductor.

As Elizabeth, Mehdi and Juliette struggle to mend bridges after being apart for so long, others must accept that their presence in Côte d’Ivoire is invariably the result of a split from family or homeland. Paradoxically, Elizabeth eventually discovers that only after a period of separation, can reconciliation be a possibility.