We’re watching more films while sheltering in place, and last night the kids and I watched Saria, the Oscar-winning Live Action Short about the 2017 fire in the Virgen de la Asuncion group home in Guatemala City. You probably remember the event: 41 girls died in a fire in a government-run gated facility after being locked in a classroom as punishment for trying to run away.

Saria is brutal, important, haunting. I don’t recommend it for young children or even adolescents. My kids are 15 and 18, and they found the movie hard to watch. Some adults may find the film’s subject and action extremely disturbing.

The filmmakers tell the story through the eyes of two sisters. As the NY Times reported soon after the fire: “The girls… were victims even before the fire. As survivors of sexual abuse, violence or abandonment — often at the hands of their own families — the government had assigned them to the institution for their own safety.”

The film is short, 22 minutes. We rented it on Amazon Prime for (I think) $1.99. For me, the ending felt unresolved, but my 18-year-old daughter disagrees. She says the ending needs to be unresolved because the situation is unresolved. There are no answers.

Watch the Saria trailer here.