Italians say “whenever someone dies, there is a business to be made.” When it comes to the death of labour migrants, the rules, practices and morality of such business are different. Most migrants can’t imagine death in migration. The money they make is sent back to finance the future: their children’s education, family houses and the everyday survival of people in another country. 3000 Euros required for repatriating the body back to Ukraine is an astronomical amount for most. Their families are far away. Their home, after decades of living abroad, is neither here nor there. But the idea of home, of family, even if they don’t meet for years, becomes the driver of all decisions, life choices, and self-discipline, thousands of miles away from the actual places and people. 

Funeralzzi is a film that uses a strong female gaze into many invisibilized topics. Through our main protagonist, who is a Ukrainian migrant woman who works in a transnational funeral business, we see multiplicity of care obligations she carries in virtual solitude. She finds solutions to problems neglected by the state policies, provides emotional support to the families in grief, and often, unresolved conflicts. She makes the economy of scarcity, characterising migration meet ends with the company's operational needs. And as many women of her background - she almost solely pushes the family relations forward. The full-scale war by Russia on Ukraine catalyses Natasha’s obligations, like it did for so many women in similar situations around the globe. In the film we see how under the rising pressure, Natasha’s humour and stoicism start peeling off, revealing her solitude. Her gradual personal awakening to disillusionment and painful choices she has to make reveal the true toll her work and life takes on her. The female gaze that she offers on her job, life in immigration and war makes the film a strong testimony of universal values.