Secrets of a Lost Diary

A tender story told in two lives, Santiago Cohen creates a meditation on heartbreak, isolation, and the promise of solace.

When her dementia-stricken grandmother Babi dies, 15-year-old Lucy sensitive and sentimental, with a punky haircut and ears full of piercings is left reeling and unmoored. That is, until a secret diary locked away in a hidden compartment drops out from Babi’s desk. What follows is a living epistolary, reflecting grandmother and granddaughter’s struggles with belonging. Babi, caught between her Polish-Jewish past and Mexican home, both reckoning with lesbian identity and the need to conceal it. Lucy comes to find they shared far more than a birthday. A moving reflection on love, grief, and connection across generations.