Karla's Arrival follows 19-year old Sujeylin Aguilar and her baby Karla, who live as part of a group of kids in a small park in Managua, Nicaragua, as they struggle through the first year of the child's life.

Months before the birth, Sujeylin is still a glue addict who lives off the generosity of her drug-dealing boyfriend and the NGOs peppering the city. She doesn't expect the arrival of her baby to change her own life considerably. She simply plans to raise her in the park where she has been living with the group of colorful characters she considers her only family. She never imagined the scope of the challenges and dangers she and her young daughter would face.

Sujeylin kicks her glue habit weeks before giving birth. Although she is strong, she is still vulnerable to picking up her old vices at the first difficulty she encounters. There are many other challenges too. The park is an unhealthy place for a newborn, not to mention its dangers and instability. Even worse, the police could show up any time to take Karla away from her.

Driven by a desire to create something she herself never had -- a true family -- the young mother makes three attempts to escape their perilous sitaution in the park. Days after Karla’s birth, Sujeylin rents a room but is soon expelled for not keeping up payments. After a period back on the streets, Sujeylin forces herself to travel to the countryside to live with her own mother and sisters. She's back two months later, having opened old family wounds which, when she was just 12, were the reason she fled to the streets in the first place. Finally, she decides to take a young man up on his offer to live with him, sacrificing her youthful desires of unmitigated freedom for the safety of the baby.

Karla's Arrival is an intense personal journey of a young woman's venture into motherhood under extreme circumstances.

Read a note from the director of Karla's Arrival.

About Doc-Debut

This film originally aired as part of Doc-Debut, a series on Link TV highlighting unique and groundbreaking international documentary films. Each week features the US television premiere of a new foreign doc, offering American audiences unprecedented perspectives on world events and culture, as seen through the eyes of individuals across the globe. The series also provides a unique outlet for films by independent directors and producers to reach a much wider international audience.