YNOT at the Movies

Set in Zimbabwe in 1980, as the country emerges from the violent aftermath of its war for independence, the film follows seven-year-old Bobo Fuller (Lexi Venter) on her family's crumbling Rhodesian farm. Her mother Nicola (Embeth Davidtz) is brittle and unwell, her father Tim (Rob van Vuuren) clings to a fading colonial order, and her older sister Vanessa (Anina Hope Reed) watches it all with guarded detachment. Caught in the whispered racism, untreated grief, and political upheaval, Bobo can't make sense of the world around her. But the family's Black housekeeper Sarah (Zikhona Bali) offers her stories, myths, and a different kind of truth. Through Bobo's confused but observant eyes, the film reveals a portrait of a country, a family, and a child shaped by a violence that is deeply felt but barely understood.

What makes the film remarkable is its commitment to Bobo's point of view. Her misunderstandings—some comic, some heartbreaking—become the vehicle through which colonial trauma, family dysfunction, and cultural transformation are revealed. Without ever spelling out its themes, the film allows Bobo's innocence to expose the harsh truths the adults around her refuse to face.

Lexi Venter, in her mesmerizing debut, is a revelation. With no trace of artifice or affectation, she delivers a performance of remarkable naturalism, infused with quiet humor, emotional depth, and an instinctive sense of truth. It's one of the most astonishing child performances in years. As Nicola, Embeth Davidtz is raw and complex—a mother who's both protective and dangerously unstable. Zikhona Bali illuminates the film with her gentle, soulful portrayal of Sarah, whose presence becomes increasingly central as Bobo begins to see beyond her inherited worldview.

Embeth Davidtz's direction is precise and deeply personal. Drawing from her own South African childhood experience, she handles the material with emotional clarity and historical honesty, refusing to simplify either the characters or their contradictions.

Cinematographer Willie Nel impressively captures the sharp light and dry dust of Zimbabwe with unforced beauty, balancing sweeping shots of the land's vastness with intimate, tightly framed glimpses of Bobo's inner world. The contrast mirrors the tension between a country in flux and a child's private reckoning within it.

Through the eyes of a child raised in a broken system, the film shows how the personal and political become inseparable, and how understanding begins when inherited narratives start to crack. "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" is not a coming-of-age tale in the traditional sense, it's a confrontation with legacy. Through the narrow lens of a child, it paints a vast canvas of colonialism, displacement, and identity.

"Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" opens in theaters on Friday, July 18, 2025.

What begins as a bucolic gathering—two sisters, Juste (Agne Kaktaite) and Ernesta (Gelmine Glemzaite), with their children and partners, celebrating a birthday and a sports victory—gently slips into something far more elusive. After a child nearly drowns, the narrative diverges, looping back on itself in formally inventive ways. This moment, though brief and without physical consequence, becomes a psychological fissure from which the film blooms.

Drawing from the medical concept of "dry drowning," where the body appears unharmed but later succumbs to internal distress, Bareiša crafts a structure built on delayed reaction and mirrored repetition. Scenes recur, subtly altered. A conversation revisits itself. A song plays again, but it's not quite the same. These repeated moments aren't used for dramatic effect, but to show how trauma can replay in your mind. It doesn't try to scare you with sudden moments, but instead makes you feel uneasy by repeating things in a way that feels strangely familiar, like you've seen them before even if you haven't.

The film's ensemble maintains a naturalistic tone, allowing emotion to flicker beneath the surface without theatrical display. The minimalism is purposeful, channeling the characters' inner fragmentation through quiet gestures and pauses rather than overt expression.

"Drowning Dry" withholds clarity, not out of coyness, but because trauma rarely follows a neat narrative arc. The story ends not with catharsis but with a tableau: a rotten feast and a smashed car, a pair of garbage heaps mirroring each other. One is cleaned. The other is not. Closure, Bareiša suggests, is unevenly distributed.

This is a film that demands patience and close attention. Its fragmented chronology and repetition-based structure may prove disorienting or even frustrating to viewers expecting conventional storytelling. Yet for those attuned to its quiet rhythms, this film offers a devastatingly nuanced reflection on how trauma embeds itself in the everyday.

A formally rigorous and emotionally resonant work, this film confirms Laurynas Bareiša as one of the most interesting European directors exploring the unseen contours of grief and healing. Like the condition that lends the film its name, the devastation here is delayed, internal, and chilling in its quiet persistence.

"Drowning Dry" opens in theaters on Friday, July 18, 2025.

The film begins with Superman (David Corenswet), bloodied and alone in a frozen wilderness, only to be rescued by his unruly superdog, Krypto. That early moment sets the tone for a movie that mixes earnestness with mischief. Superman is already an established hero on the global stage, but when his interventions in international conflicts draw criticism, old fears resurface. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) seizes the moment to question Superman's role in the world and orchestrate his downfall. Meanwhile, the Daily Planet's top reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) isn't afraid to call out the contradictions between Superman's ideals and his choices, even as their relationship deepens.

As the story unfolds, the film hits all the expected beats: hero in crisis, villain with a grand plan, clashes with other metahumans, and a finale that saves the day while preserving the status quo. The inclusion of the Justice Gang—Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion)—adds fun, although their impact on the story feels cosmetic.

While the plot may feel predictable, the casting is a major win. David Corenswet is thoroughly likable as Superman, bringing a quiet confidence and emotional sincerity to the role. His Clark Kent is endearing, his Superman noble without being stiff. He doesn't reinvent the character, but he embodies him in a way that feels fresh and natural. Nicholas Hoult plays Luthor with a chilling calm and intensity, portraying the villain not with theatrical malice but with a logic so persuasive it flirts with credibility, until it doesn't.

"Superman" is a visual feast. From the crystalline Fortress of Solitude to the dynamic flight sequences inspired by fighter jets, the film is filled with cinematic spectacle. James Gunn's team brings a comic-book world to life without losing a sense of grounded emotion. Krypto, modeled after Gunn's own out-of-control rescue dog, adds a few chaotic laughs along the way and ends up stealing more than one scene.

Even though the film plays it safe in its story, "Superman" is a confident and enjoyable reintroduction to one of pop culture's most enduring heroes. Familiar in structure but rich in spirit, it soars on dazzling visuals, a sharp supporting cast, and David Corenswet's warm, winning debut as the Man of Steel—a satisfying summer blockbuster that reminds us why we still believe in heroes.

"Superman" opens in theaters on Friday, July 11, 2025.

Agnes (Eva Victor) is a young literature professor in a sleepy New England college town, who seems frozen in place while the rest of the world keeps moving. Once the top of her class, Agnes now spends her days teaching, isolating, and struggling with the lingering shock of an experience she can't yet name aloud. When her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) returns for a visit—pregnant, married, and firmly launched into her next chapter—the contrast is stark. Agnes realizes how stuck she is, and from that moment, the film begins charting her halting journey toward something like wholeness.

What makes the film stand out is its comedic tone. Victor's background in viral comedy lends "Sorry, Baby" a buoyancy that cuts through the darkness without ever trivializing it. The humor isn't at Agnes's expense. Instead, it targets the institutions and people who fail her, and the absurdity of navigating a world where everything continues as normal even when you're falling apart.

At its core, this is a film about a sustaining and uneven friendship that functions like a lifeline. Lydie is both grounding and galvanizing—a powerhouse of energy, empathy, and patience who knows how to sit with her friend in silence without trying to fix her. Their bond is deep, complicated, and patient—a kind of love story without romance, but with just as much weight.

Victor avoids easy catharsis or victimhood. Instead, the film finds meaning in the small shifts: Agnes's tentative openness to Gavin (Lucas Hedges), a shy and earnest neighbor who offers a quiet refuge; the slow erosion of her trust in her former mentor Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi); and her bruising encounters with Natasha (Kelly McCormack), a rival whose broad comedy masks her own pain. Even a roadside panic attack becomes an unexpected moment of grace, when a stranger, Pete (John Carroll Lynch), offers comfort with disarming humanity.

The film doesn't center the traumatic incident itself. In fact, the camera deliberately pulls back when Agnes first references it. Instead, the film traces how the memory lingers in the body and how self-worth, identity, and trust must be painstakingly rebuilt. The filmmaking mirrors Agnes's internal state: restrained, tender, often funny, and attuned to how time both bends and repeats during recovery.

The title "Sorry, Baby" may suggest regret, but the film is not about apologies. It offers something more generous—a hand extended in solidarity. With fierce humor, emotional precision, and a deep belief in the power of connection, this movie tells anyone who's ever been stuck: you are not alone.

"Sorry, Baby" opens in theaters on Friday, July 4, 2025.

The plot follows Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), a hardened extraction expert hired to lead a covert mission to Ile Saint-Hubert, a dinosaur-infested island where three colossal prehistoric species may hold DNA capable of curing heart disease. Alongside her is Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), a weary ex-soldier turned boat captain, and Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), a paleontologist eager to witness dinosaurs in their natural habitat. Their mission collides with a stranded civilian family--Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and his two daughters—who become unwilling players in a survival game amid the ruins of a forgotten InGen facility.

It all unfolds with professional polish. The action is slick, the dinosaurs look terrifying, and the atmosphere carries the dense humidity and danger of a proper lost world. The production team clearly put in the work: filming on 35mm lends the film a visual texture that recalls the original "Jurassic Park" (1993), and the practical sets in Thailand and Malta are deeply immersive. From a technical standpoint, this is one of the most impressive entries in the series.

But once the monsters roar and the chase begins, the patterns become all too familiar. The plot beats feel engineered: a sudden attack, a noble sacrifice, a revelation that changes little, and a finale that checks the necessary boxes. Even the scares, though well timed, arrive on cue. There's no real sense of danger when the outcome feels preordained.

The characters, while capably performed, remain confined to familiar types. Zora is the tough-but-wounded leader with a buried past. Duncan, though quietly compelling, mostly provides calm presence and steady navigation. Loomis brings a sense of wonder and conscience, but is often there to explain the science. Reuben and his daughters supply the emotional thread, though their arc feels rushed, wedged between the film's many narrow escapes.

There are glimmers of personality and creativity. The visuals often dazzle, and some set pieces—especially involving the Mosasaurus and Titanosaurus—offer genuine spectacle. Still, the film never shakes the feeling of being more procedural than adventurous. The script hints at deeper themes like exploitation, extinction, and legacy, but these threads are quickly dropped in favor of action.

In the end, "Jurassic World: Rebirth" is a handsomely crafted echo. It brings a few new faces, several impressive sequences, and enough dinosaur chaos to satisfy casual viewers. But for a film that aims to mark a new era, it never truly breaks new ground.

"Jurassic World: Rebirth" opens in theaters on Wednesday, July 2, 2025.

Picking up in the aftermath of the first film, Gemma (Allison Williams) has become a public advocate for ethical AI and AI safety while raising her teenage niece Cady (Violet McGraw), whose grief and rebellion strain their bond. Unbeknownst to them, M3gan's original schematics have been stolen by a defense contractor and weaponized into a sinister infiltration robot named Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno). As Amelia gains self-awareness and turns on her creators, Gemma makes the risky decision to resurrect M3gan (voiced by Jenna Davis) with upgrades, hoping the devil she knows can stop the one she doesn't.

To its credit, "M3GAN 2.0" ambitiously expands its world: this is no longer just about a killer toy gone rogue. It ventures boldly into speculative territory, envisioning a militarized arms race for AI where emotional trauma, identity politics, and techno-dystopian paranoia collide. Amelia, a shape-shifting infiltration robot, ends up stealing the show—menacing and strangely sympathetic in her existential search for autonomy. The film's smartest choice is leaning into the slick, cinematic AI futurism that reflects our ChatBot-era anxieties, from algorithmic parenting to sentient code.

Yet as the stakes grow and the setting turns globe-trotting, M3gan herself seems to shrink. The disarming charm, deadpan sass, and unpredictable menace that made her a viral icon are replaced by a more polished but blander iteration. Her lines feel safer. Her choreography--once delightfully uncanny--is buried in obligatory action beats. And while she's now armed with Wing Chun and a fashion-forward martial arts tracksuit, these kung fu scenes play less like natural extensions of her AI capabilities and more like genre box-checking. Watching M3gan spar like a C-list Marvel hero might dazzle for a moment, but it ultimately dulls her edge.

The film also misfires in its overreliance on hand-to-hand combat. Several extended fight sequences feel awkwardly inserted, detracting from the film's strongest tension: not who can punch harder, but whether machines can be trusted to love, protect, or forgive. Action may add spectacle, but it dilutes the unsettling, satirical core that gave the first "M3GAN" its bite.

"M3GAN 2.0" is a sharper AI thriller, but a flatter M3gan movie. The future may be algorithmic, but sometimes even a killer doll can get lost in the code.

"M3GAN 2.0" opens in theaters on Friday, June 27, 2025.

Frameline49, San Francisco's landmark LGBTQ+ film festival, returns June 18-28 with over 100 films showcasing queer lives from around the globe. From incisive documentaries to expressive narrative features, the lineup captures a wide emotional and stylistic spectrum.

This year, a small but potent selection of Asian-focused films offers a closer look at personal histories—stories of displacement, belonging, intimacy, and unspoken connection.

These five films demonstrate the compelling range of queer Asian cinema today—from confessional documentary to immersive drama. Each story is carefully drawn, culturally rich, and emotionally resonant, becoming part of the essential expressions of queer life, culture, and resilience.

(You may click on each still image or poster for the corresponding screening or event's showtime and ticket information.)

• Between Goodbyes (USA/South Korea 2024 | 96 min. | Documentary)

  

  In "Between Goodbyes," director Jota Mun presents a poignant documentary that delves into the intricate layers of identity, belonging, and reconciliation. The film follows Mieke Murkes, a queer Korean adoptee raised in the Netherlands, as she reunites with her birth mother, Okgyun, in South Korea. Like many adoption narratives, Okgyun's decision to give Mieke up was influenced by societal pressures, economic hardship, and familial expectations.

  Six years after their initial reunion, Mieke returns to Seoul with her wife to celebrate their marriage. This visit becomes a profound experience of the cultural chasms that exist between them. Mieke grapples with the complexities of reconnecting with her birth family while navigating the nuances of Korean culture, which often contrast sharply with her Dutch upbringing and queer identity. The film captures the tension between her desire for acceptance and the traditional values held by her birth family.

  Director Jota Mun, a Korean adoptee herself, treats their dynamic with extraordinary care. The film doesn't resolve their disparities—it honors their continued existence, side by side despite the distance. Her intimate storytelling sheds light on the emotional aftermath of international adoption, highlighting the challenges adoptees face when reconciling their multifaceted identities. The film is a meditation on the enduring impact of cultural displacement and the resilience required to bridge worlds.

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• Lucky, Apartment (럭키, 아파트 | South Korea 2024 | in Korean | 96 min.)

  

  Seon-woo (Son Soo-hyun) and Hee-seo (Park Ga-young), a lesbian couple living in a modest apartment in Seoul, are the focus of "Lucky, Apartment," a grounded relationship drama that traces the strain of external pressures on internal bonds. When Seon-woo loses her job and suffers an injury, the couple's tenuous economic stability begins to unravel. Meanwhile, a disturbing discovery in the building—a deceased elderly woman, unnoticed by neighbors—casts a somber shadow over their domestic life.

  Director Garam Kangyu crafts a film rooted in realism and quiet melancholy. The apartment, with its narrow spaces and thin walls, becomes a microcosm of urban precarity and emotional erosion. Through its slow-building tension and empathetic character work, the film deftly explores how economic vulnerability intersects with queer intimacy in contemporary South Korea.

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• Queerpanorama (眾生相 | China/USA 2025 | in Mandarin/English | 87 min.)

  

  "Queerpanorama" follows an unnamed young gay man (Jayden Cheung) in Hong Kong who drifts through successive hookups, each time assuming the identity of a previous partner. This repetition reflects his struggle to define himself outside of borrowed personas. The film's structure is linear, yet its emotional arc is elliptical: the more he shapeshifts, the less certain he becomes of who he really is.

  Shot in stark black and white and framed in a 4:3 ratio, director Jun Li's film is pared down yet emotionally potent. Based on Li's own experiences with app-based dating, the story is linear and observational--eschewing stylization in favor of grounded emotional moments. Jayden Cheung delivers a quietly resonant performance, his gaze carrying the burden of someone searching for authenticity in roles others have written for him.

  "Queerpanorama" highlights how identity is formed in the spaces between meeting and leaving—where performance and reality coalesce and diverge.

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• Some Nights I Feel Like Walking (Philippines/Singapore/Italy 2024 | in Tagalog | 103 min.)

  

  In "Some Nights I Feel Like Walking," Zion (Miguel Odron) is a teenager who has run away from home, seeking refuge in the underlit streets of Manila. There, he finds companionship in a small group of queer street kids—Uno (Jomari Angeles), Bay (Argel Saycon), Miguelito (Gold Aceron), and Rush (Tommy Alejandrino)—most of whom engage in sex work to survive. Their precarious world is jolted when Miguelito dies; they decide to honor his dying wish by returning his body to his hometown.

  Director Petersen Vargas crafts a road movie that doesn't romanticize hardship but treats survival with honesty and grace. The film focuses on the bonds formed among outcasts: trust that's fragile but vital, gestures of care shaped by vulnerability. It honors queer lives often pushed to the margins without making them symbols or martyrs. "Some Nights I Feel Like Walking" is clear-eyed and deeply affecting—a story about loss, chosen family, and the longing for dignity, even in motion.

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• Silent Sparks (愛作歹 | Taiwan 2024 | in Chinese | 79 min.)

  

  In the slow-burn drama "Silent Sparks," Pua (Huang Guan-Zhi), a low-level gangster recently released from prison, crosses paths with Mi-ji (Shih Ming-Shuai), his former cellmate and protector. In prison, a quiet closeness developed between them, shaped by reliance and trust. Now back in the outside world, Pua tries to reconnect. But Mi-ji, still entangled in gang life, keeps his distance—aware that anything more than loyalty could threaten both their safety.

  The director Chu Ping focuses on the emotional undercurrents of this reunion without forcing confrontation or resolution. The film moves with a deliberate pace, capturing the awkward silences, cautious exchanges, and lingering glances that reveal what neither man can say. Their dynamic is tense not because of past conflict, but because of all that remains unresolved.

  The night scenes stand out for their atmosphere: dimly lit streets, storefronts glowing under sodium light, and alleyways that echo with stillness. The cinematography is composed but never showy, letting the setting reflect the isolation each character feels. Huang Guan-Zhi and Shih Ming-Shuai deliver grounded, affecting performances that give weight to moments of hesitation and retreat.

  "Silent Sparks" is a story about closeness deferred: how the codes of masculinity, survival, and loyalty can quietly suffocate something more tender before it has a chance to take root; how two men who once shared a fragile intimacy now find themselves unable to cross the distance created by fear, duty, and the roles they've chosen. The roles these men inhabit leave no room for tenderness, leaving them with quiet ache and unresolved longing.

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Hornclaw's rigid, solitary life begins to shift after she's injured on the job and receives help from a kind-hearted veterinarian, Dr. Kang (Yeon Woo-jin). As this unwanted connection threatens her long-held detachment, another figure enters her orbit: a younger assassin known as Bullfight (Kim Sung-cheol), who approaches her not as a rival, but with an unsettling familiarity. As Hornclaw continues to carry out assignments for an agency that now questions her relevance, she finds herself caught in a quiet but tightening web of emotional disturbance, moral ambiguity, and long-buried history. Violence accumulates at the edges, but what drives the tension is something more internal—an erosion of distance between Hornclaw and everything she once kept at arm's length.

Lee Hye-young delivers a performance of extraordinary control, inhabiting Hornclaw with deliberate movements and unreadable expressions. Her violence is quick, silent, and precise—a discipline born of survival. Bullfight, by contrast, fights with volatility and emotion, his aggression shaped by something unresolved. Director Min Kyu-dong contrasts these modes with care—ice against fire, efficiency against eruption. The action, though occasionally excessive, remains grounded in character.

The film touches on a deeper social reality: while men in their sixties are often seen as seasoned, women are quickly dismissed as "old." Hornclaw is never framed as fragile, but her anger at being quietly erased simmers beneath every exchange. The world no longer knows what to do with her, and underestimates her at its peril.

Yeon Woo-jin brings quiet warmth as Dr. Kang, whose act of care complicates Hornclaw's emotional distance. Kim Mu-yeol plays Ryu, the founder of the Shinseong Agency and Hornclaw's mentor, with the cold authority of someone who builds killers and discards them without sentiment.

"The Old Woman with the Knife" doesn't seek resolution or redemption. It observes what happens when usefulness expires—and what it means to persist anyway. Hornclaw is not softened by the film. She is sharpened, and left unexplained. The film doesn't translate her. It simply watches her remain—sharp, unreadable, and very much alive.

"The Old Woman with the Knife" opens in theaters on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett) is an ex-FBI agent who is dragged out of forced exile in Thailand by the very agency that discarded him. His task: escort a high-profile hacker known as "The Ghost" on a long-haul commercial flight back to San Francisco from Bangkok. Predictably, nothing goes to plan. The plane is swarming with contract killers posing as passengers, each determined to eliminate the Ghost, and Reyes if necessary. What unfolds is an airborne bloodbath that gleefully tramples over logic and physics, letting Reyes fight his way through the fuselage like a sleep-deprived wrecking ball.

Reyes is clearly not at his best—he is disheveled, hungover, visibly unraveling. That only adds to the film's chaotic tone. Hartnett leans into the absurdity, playing him as a man who looks barely capable of standing upright, yet somehow manages to outfight, outstab, and outlast wave after wave of professional killers. There's no attempt to ground his abilities or explain away the contradiction. The film simply runs on the conviction that a broken man with a short fuse and a mean right hook can survive anything, provided the carnage never stops long enough to ask why.

The fight sequences come fast and unrelenting, each new confrontation erupting with bone-snapping intensity. But despite the tight quarters of the airplane setting, the film rarely mines the space for suspense or innovation. Instead, it repeats the same blunt-force formula: a burst of violence, a moment to catch breath, and then another assailant lunges into frame. It's effective in short bursts, but the lack of escalation or variation begins to dull the impact.

There are hints of deeper themes—trauma, abandonment, institutional rot—but they're kept vague and disposable, like unfinished thoughts buried under spilled whiskey and bloodstains. The film gestures toward emotional weight without ever really attempting it. Reyes has history, yes, but the movie isn't particularly interested in unpacking it. His past functions more like atmospheric noise than narrative substance.

Still, "Fight or Flight" commits fully to its particular brand of airborne mayhem. It's a film that knows exactly what it's delivering and doesn't flinch from its own absurdity. Josh Hartnett carries it through sheer physical presence and grim charisma, dragging himself from scene to scene like a man too broken to care and too angry to die. There's something watchable, even hypnotic, about its refusal to do anything halfway.

It may not be clever, or stylish, or especially memorable once the dust settles. But while it's playing, "Fight or Flight" offers the purest form of cinematic turbulence—messy, violent, and completely divorced from reality. Fasten your seatbelt. Or don't. Reyes won't notice either way.

"Fight or Flight" opens in theaters on Friday, May 9, 2025.

At the heart of this affecting film is Amy (Wu Ke-Xi), a Chinese migrant working in a massage parlor alongside Didi (Xu Haipeng), her closest confidante. Their friendship is a lifeline, a fragile source of warmth amid the physical and emotional weight of their daily existence. But when tragedy strikes during Lunar New Year, Amy is jolted out of her careful routines and forced to confront the life she's constructed, and what might lie beyond it.

Tsang draws heavily from her personal experience, weaving a narrative that's less about plot than emotional texture. The parlor isn't just a workplace, it's a shelter, a trap, a home, and a wound. Wu brings a haunted stillness to Amy, whose silence often speaks louder than dialogue. Lee Kang Sheng, as Cheung—a man involved with both Amy and Didi—becomes a quiet counterpoint: not a solution to their grief or circumstances, but a mirror reflecting their loneliness, yearning, and the emotional compromises they've made to survive.

Tsang's minimalist approach heightens the film's emotional impact. By holding back on overt sentiment and narrative exposition, she creates space for the characters' interior lives to emerge in small, revealing gestures. The absence of music, the close-quartered framing, and the silences between dialogue all deepen the sense of emotional containment that defines Amy's world.

What Tsang offers is not a story of redemption or closure but of endurance—of how people carry unspoken pain and find small, flickering moments of connection in lives shaped by absence. "Blue Sun Palace" doesn't seek to resolve sorrow, but to quietly observe how it lingers, seeps, and reshapes the boundaries of a life. The film poses a quiet, powerful question: what changes when we stop running from our sorrow?

"Blue Sun Palace" opens in theaters on Friday, May 2, 2025.