An eight-year-old girl hopes that her parents will get back together. She and her brothers go to Italy where they spend the Christmas holiday by the sea with their absent, nonconformist father Carlo and his collaborator Benedetta, during which the family’s tensions come to the surface.

Warm, wistful, and full of life: the debut feature from Ginevra Elkann looks at the stumbling blocks of family dysfunction by pulling at the threads of the director’s own experiences growing up. Gently reminiscent of early Mia Hansen-Løve, If Only is steeped in the bittersweet memories of childhood.