Dreams in Waiting
28 minutes | 2026Short film
Upon arriving in Sweden, Ernestina receives a voice message from her home country, filled with well wishes and expectations for her new life. Two decades later, now long-term unemployed, she listens to the same message again and moves between past and present.
Through intimate everyday vignettes, the film follows Ernestina's life, shaped by bureaucratic demands and moments of solidarity with other women. The memory of a future that once seemed possible unfolds alongside a present marked by uncertainty and bureaucratic control. Through observational images, archival material, and sonic memories, Dreams in Waiting weaves together personal memory and the present into a film about the temporality of migration, where waiting becomes a condition that shapes both the body and the future.
Dreams in Waiting is the final part of a trilogy on mothers, labor, and dreams.
Credits
Director: Jonelle Twum
Script: Jonelle Twum
Producer: Hawa Sanneh
Cast: Ernestina Nkansah
DoP: Roxana Reiss, Christine Leuhusen