The discovery of a child’s loom unearths a family mystery of a mother who killed her four daughters in 1945 Berlin.

When a refugee artist joins the filmmaker’s quest for answers, she uncovers a shocking personal connection.

When the filmmaker, Helene, heard the story of her grandmother’s cousin, Hanni, she was told that she killed her daughters, her mother and herself because she feared rape by Red Army soldiers. As Helene pulls at the threads of the story, she finds a more difficult truth.

Helene meets Maryna, a Ukrainian artist who fled war and found refuge in Berlin. Hanni’s story fascinates Maryna and inspires her to question her own family narrative. The discovery of a startling secret challenges Maryna’s understanding of her past. These revelations give new insights into Hanni’s fate and reveal the silence that takes hold when women’s bodies become battlefields of war.

The Loom is a feature documentary that looks at war, both past and present, from a new perspective. It elevates testimonies that are often shrouded in silence or deemed unworthy of recording in history books. The film weaves together eye witness interviews with photographs, diaries and documents, including handwritten accounts of war written by women and girls. And The Loom reveals how a new generation is challenging the silences of war and finding paths forward.