Director/producer Loira Limbal’s Through the Night is a lean, powerful cinema verité portrait centred on a daycare centre in New York state.
Run by Deloris and Patrick Hogan (affectionately known as Nunu and Pop Pop) out of their own home – 24 hours a day, seven days a week for over two decades – it sees them function essentially as replacement parents, offering not just supervision but also love, affection and care to the children of families with nowhere else to turn. Not only faithfully depicting life at the daycare centre, Limbal’s camera also follows the women for whom it’s a lifeline – in particular, a mother working the overnight shift at a hospital and another holding down three jobs just to support her family.
An intimate study of titanic strength, love, and selflessness, 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.
