El abrazo partido

Ariel’s world is a small, rather run-down shopping centre in downtown Buenos Aires. All day long one can hear the cries of Italian storekeepers, watch Koreans selling feng shui articles or observe Osvaldo, who can’t seem to shift any of his wares. Ariel’s mother runs a women’s lingerie shop and his brother is in the import-export business. His is a cosy little world - albeit one without much of a future.
Many young people of Ariel’s age are busy tracing their ethnic roots in the hope of obtaining the foreign travel documents that will open the doors to the big, wide world. Ariel’s interests, however, lie elsewhere. Ariel’s grandparents came to Argentina from Poland to escape the Holocaust; but Ariel wants more than a Polish passport. What preoccupies him is why his father left the family to go and fight for Israel shortly after Ariel was born. And why did he never come back? Moreover, why does his father’s absence appear to be of little or no interest to his mother and his brothers?
And then, one day, his father suddenly appears before him. At long last, father can enfold son in a long-overdue embrace. And what’s more, Ariel finally gets to hear the whole story …