"Laurina" is a short film based on the real-life journals of the two writers' grandmother.

 

As a young, Italian-immigrant girl, (decades before the #metoo movement) Laurina struggles with the same question present-day survivors must face. Shatter the silence or speak? As an older woman, Laurina is faced with the same difficult question - remain silent or shatter the silence? But this time it's not her voice that must be heard.

 

Directed by a two-time Emmy winning female Director, Sylvia Caminer, "Laurina" is an inspiring story of courage and how one little girl's strength can ripple through generations.

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Synopsis: Two female figures sit on a bench along the shore of New York's Hudson river. One older, LAURINA, 60-70s, and one younger, LENA, 13. Lena is crying hard. She looks to Laurina and askes, "You believe me, don't you?"

 

After a long moment, Laurina reaches inside her bag and gives Lena an old, tattered journal. She shares her own story to gain Lena's trust...  

 

YOUNG LAURINA, 12, beautiful and sweetly naive, sits on a small bed inside a Catholic orphanage. Her strong-willed sister MINNIE, 13, paces behind her. Abandoned at the institution for years, their newly remarried Italian immigrant mother, CARMELLA, 30s, is finally coming to claim them. After a joyous reunion the girls are introduced to their mysterious new stepfather, Italian immigrant PIETRO, 30s.

 

Pietro does his best to make a good impression even though he's hit hard by the reality of having an instant family. The girls are unsure what to make of him, but he's charming enough and they're grateful he made it possible for him to be with their mother again.

 

They're excited when they learn he's moving them to a friend's farmhouse in upstate New York by the Hudson river. It's a new start for everyone.

 

When the new family reaches the farmhouse their hopes for a new beginning are shattered. Faced with the hardships of rural life and ethnic discrimination Pietro can't adjust and rapidly declines. He forces Carmella and the girls to work long, grueling hours in a textile mill. What little money they do earn, he wastes on gambling and drinking. His condition worsens and he becomes increasingly violent.

 

Laurina blossoms into a lovely, young woman and slowly becomes the object of Pietro's  obsession. One night, left alone with Laurina, he batters and sexually abuses her. Over the next several months he intimidates her into silence. When Laurina becomes pregnant at 13, the truth can no longer be hidden. Now she must choose to remain silent or shatter the silence, changing everyone's life around her.

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Laurina's long-ago-courageous actions give Lena the power to abolish her own shame and recognize she has the strength to stop the cycle of abuse.