Unbroken Glass is a documentary about filmmaker Dinesh Sabu's journey to understand his parents, who died 20 years ago when he was six years old. Traveling to India, Lousiana, California, and New Mexico, Dinesh pieces together the story of his mother's schizophrenia and how his family dealt with it in an age and culture where mental illness was often misunderstood, scorned and taboo. Dwarka and Susheela Sabu lived complicated lives bridging two countries and cultures. Unbroken Glass is more than a story about immigrants or mental illness, it is a nuanced story of one family and their struggles. More than a linear narrative of their lives, Unbroken Glass is an impressionistic portrait of who Dinesh's parents were-- as immigrants, family members, as complex people subject to social forces. It weaves together his journey of discovery with cinema-verite scenes of his family dealing with still raw emotions and consequences of his parents lives and deaths. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 1% of the US population is affected by schizophrenia, and there is a proven genetic component to the illness. Some research has pointed to a link between "acculturative stress," the kind of stress immigrants experience adjusting to a new life, and the onset of mental illness. Dinesh hopes that telling this story will raise awareness about schizophrenia and empower families of the mentally—Kartemquin Films

When he was six, filmmaker Dinesh Sabu's father died after a sudden diagnosis of stomach cancer. His mother committed suicide, the end of a fifteen-year struggle with schizophrenia. As time passed, his family pieced their lives together, rarely talking about these shattering events. But now Dinesh, the youngest of five siblings, wants to find out more about his parents' story. Along the way, Dinesh confronts his own trauma of being orphaned, resurfaced memories of his parents, and the burden of his own risk of mental illness. But his desire to revisit the past and break the silence risks upsetting the carefully maintained balance he and his siblings have constructed over the past twenty years. Is reconstructing the past worth the cost of disrupting the present?—Anonymous