Turin, 1969. Massimo’s idyllic childhood is shattered by the mysterious death of his mother. The young boy refuses to accept what happened. Years later, as he prepares to sell his parents’ flat, memories come flooding back. Compassionate doctor Elisa could help him confront his traumatic past.

Across 6 decades Italian maestro Marco Bellocchio has made some of the great masterworks of his homeland’s cinema—this sublime 2016 entry finds him in a tender register, examining the eternal bonds between mother and son. A perceptive look at the ties that bind and the long shadow cast by childhood.