Living

Irene lives in a crumbling house in the outskirts of Rio with her husband and her four sons. Her teenage son Fernando is a local handball star and when he’s scouted to play professionally in Germany, the family has only a few weeks to ready his departure and say goodbye. The perspective of Fernando leaving is a shock and a big change in Irene’s life but also a chance to see herself as a woman again and not just as a mother. Irene gets her high-school diploma, finds a new job and pushes forward with plans for a new family home. More

TOKYO SONATA is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. The father who abruptly loses his job conceals the truth from his family; the eldest son in college hardly returns home; the youngest son furtively takes piano lessons without telling his parents; and the mother, who knows deep down that her role is to keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so. From the exterior, all is normal and the same. But somehow, a single, unforeseeable chasm has appeared within the family, only to spread ever so quietly and quickly to disintegrate them. More