Great Absence

Synopsis
When working actor Takashi receives a jarring call from the police, he is forced to reconnect with his estranged father of 20 years, Yohji — an esteemed academic slipping rapidly 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 and unspoken grief, forcing Takashi to trace the past of his father that he has long 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 Chikaura that navigates the fragile terrain of memory, estrangement, and the quiet devastations of aging.