When Takashi (Mirai Moriyama) receives a call from the police, he is forced to reconnect with his estranged father, Yohji (Tatsuya Fuji), an esteemed academic slipping into dementia. As Takashi attempts to piece together the mystery of Yohji’s missing wife and the fractured life his father now inhabits, their reunion uncovers long-buried tensions, forcing Takashi to trace the past of his father that he has refused to accept.

Unfolding as a meditation on loss – of time, identity, and familial closeness never fully grasped – GREAT ABSENCE is a “delicately devastating” (Variety) award-winning drama from rising star director Kei Chika-ura that navigates the fragile terrain of memory, estrangement, and the quiet devastations of aging.

“A moving drama... structured quite magnificently by (Keita) Kumano and Chika-ura, directing only his second feature. To follow it all requires close attention, but it’s an attention that’s rewarded.” –The New York Times (Critic's Pick)

DIRECTED BY KEI CHIKA-URA
JAPAN | 2023 | JAPANESE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES