Renoir

This Cannes Competition highlight is a tender, memoir-etched coming-of-age portrait of formative loneliness and loss.

It’s 1987 in Tokyo, and 11-year-old Fuki is a daydreamer stuck in a society fixated on work, wealth and diligence. Her father (Lily Franky, Shoplifters, MIFF 2018) is dying of terminal cancer, and her mother is preoccupied with both a new job and caring for her husband. With modern technology offering each member of the family distractions from their insurmountable problems – be they miracle cures, quick fixes, parasocial connection or a balm for loneliness – Fuki builds her own imaginary world via a dating hotline she secretly listens in on.

Screening in Competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Renoir is the second impressive feature directed by Chie Hayakawa, whose dystopian, euthanasia-themed Plan 75 (MIFF 2022) previously bewitched audiences. Drawing from her own experience of losing her father to cancer in her childhood, Hayakawa crafts a finely-honed coming-of-age tale free from clichés. Shot through with a sense of realism, humanity and drama reminiscent of the subtle works of Hirokazu Kore-eda and Yasujirō Ozu, this is a beautiful, illuminating cine-memoir grappling with mortality, melancholy, isolation and the unspoken.

“A film that steps to a delicate rhythm whose echo isn’t heard until the very end. Because Renoir isn’t really about the immediate grappling of a parent’s death … It’s intrigued by the suspension of grief, and the longing and recklessness it can produce.” – RogerEbert.com