Jay returns to his childhood neighbourhood in Washington, D.C., to work on a screenplay. What remains when you leave, what is left when you come back? How to grasp memories and fragments of the past? Layers bleeding into each other – dreams of a childhood home, repressed and present traumata. Movements of searching, political urgencies and violence – inscribed into a street. Gentrification. An everchanging city. Intangible and somehow off-centre. An attempt to take hold of what cannot be brought back. Driven by the desire for place and connectedness. Making films about films, rummaging through a density of layered realities to find specific images for a bigger picture. Bits and pieces, between dazzling moments and pain. In his impressive debut feature, Merawi Gerima skilfully conveys his protagonist’s conflicting experiences: As he returns to places of his past, the political realities of the present catch up with him. (dca)