A cinema verité portrait of three working NY mothers whose lives intersect at a 24-hour daycare center
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American Documentary is proud to announce the national broadcast premiere of PBS alumnus Loira Limbal’s (Estilo Hip Hop) second feature documentary, Through the Night, premiering Monday, May 10, 2021 on PBS at 10 p.m. ET (check local listings) and at pov.org as part of the program’s 33rd season. The film will also be available to stream for free at pov.org until June 10, 2021.
An official selection at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival as well as at DOC NYC and AFI DOCS, Through the Night is an intimate cinema verité portrait of three working mothers whose lives intersect at a 24-hour daycare center in New Rochelle, New York: a mother working the overnight shift as an essential worker at a pediatric hospital; another holding down three jobs in order to support her family, and a woman who, for over two decades, has cared for the children whose parents have nowhere else to turn.
A timely portrait of resilience, love, and the fundamental role of caregivers in society, Through the Night showcases the multiplicity of “women’s work” — paid, underpaid, and unpaid; emotional and physical; domestic and career-oriented — all while negotiating the terms of a dignified existence under the three arrows of racism, sexism, and capitalism in America. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Through the Night and the stories it centers take on an even greater sense of urgency and profound meaning.
In subtle strokes, Limbal takes the viewer into the world of Dee’s Tots, a vibrantdaycare center that caters to all types of family situations and scenarios. Children are picked up and dropped off by parents who are tired but appreciative, many of them coming from overnight shifts or long days of work, sometimes at multiple jobs. The families that Deloris (or Nunu, as the children call her) serves are explicit in their need for her and her service; she’s a part of their family, and in many cases, she’s the glue that holds them together, an integral piece of the puzzle that helps make their day-to-day schedules possible. Through the Night spotlights the fact that these parents often have nowhere else to turn, putting into sharp focus the networks of pressure placed on single-parent households led by women of color. The capitalist system, it emphasizes, isn’t set up to take care of these essential workers that keep our economy afloat; they battle racism, sexism, and systemic apathy as they try to do what’s best for their families.
“POV was very proud to come on early as co-producers of Through the Night, in partnership with ITVS. This is the type of resonant and thoughtful filmmaking that public media should be supporting and that audiences want to see” said executive director of POV | American Documentary Justine Nagan. “With extraordinary empathy and a visionary sense for detail, Loira’s film is a testament not only to the dehumanizing grind of the modern economy, but also to the beauty, community and love of the mothers, caregivers and children who carve out rich and full lives in the midst of systemic injustice. Both timely and universal, Through the Night is an incredible and important film, and we can’t wait to share it with PBS viewers across the country.”
“Through the Night is my love letter to single mothers and caregivers,” says director Loira Limbal. “I was raised by an amazing cast of Black and Latinx women who performed miraculous acts of resilience, creativity, and subversion on a daily basis. Unfortunately, when I look around at our popular culture these women are rarely seen and when they do appear, they are represented in reductive ways that often amount to caricatures. My vision as a filmmaker is to flood our popular culture with beautifully complex portrayals of the lives of working-class women of color so that we have new gazes and new ways of seeing ourselves. Through the Night is the story of our protagonists, but it’s also the story of countless women in my community. It’s my mother’s story. It’s my own story. And while I want to shine a light on the many systemic problems in our society, I ultimately want to lift up the abundance of love and interdependence among the women, children, and families in our film and our communities.”
