China’s one-child policy is the historical backdrop for this sweeping chronicle of family and loss, a journey at once intimate and epic between a tragic past and a resilient present. Above all, its humanist beauty lies in the heart-wrenching performances, which won Best Actress and Actor in Berlin.

Brimming with humor, dreams, and tenderness, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ravishing film unfurls as if in a trance. With his signature slow-cinema style, the celebrated filmmaker infuses Thai spiritualism into the quotidian, rendering visits to a small-town hospital a magnificent, eerie experience.

Through hypnotic bodily gestures and earthy rituals of food preparation, Lê Bảo’s extraordinary debut lends an otherworldly sensuality to the slums of Ho Chi Minh City. Set against the grey solitude of urban precarity is a meeting of lost souls whose wordless tenderness transcends language barriers.