The migrants missing in Mexico, and the mothers who won’t stop searching for them

Since You Arrived, My Heart Stopped Belonging to Me takes viewers into the lives of Central American mothers as they traverse Mexico in search of their missing children, who disappeared while attempting to cross the border into the United States. The director Erin Semine Kökdil, who is based in Oklahoma and Guatemala, interweaves several personal stories that convey the root causes of migration in the region, while capturing the bonds forged between these women as their diverse experiences converge in a shared bus trip north and overlapping-yet-distinct emotional journeys. By focusing on the interplay of grief and love, and grounding the narrative in the defiance embodied by these women amid their unwavering searches, Semine Kökdil offers a poignant and deeply human perspective on the migrants who are so often reduced to mere numbers.