Carole Laganière dives deeply into personal territory in this beautifully crafted exploration of absence and loss and its painful effect on daily lives. Inspired by her mother’s steadily advancing Alzheimer’s and the inevitability of her estrangement, Laganière weaves their story with the stories of others wrestling with loss: Ines, an immigrant who returns to her birth country of Croatia to find the mother who abandoned her during the war; Deni, an American author who’s finally able to search for his Quebec roots; and Nathalie, who’s desperately looking for her missing sister. Through their experiences the film ponders how absence is often the catalyst for a quest—a quest for information, understanding and often acceptance. Through its many voices, Absences speaks to us of the immense fragility and resiliency of human emotions.
Your rating
Your review
Cast
9 people
Carole Laganière Director · Luc Sicard Composer Dominic Dorval Cinematographer
First release April 25, 2014 · Produced in Canada · Languages Croatian, English, French
Production
ONF | NFB
Production
Canada
Produced in
Languages
Original language
English
Spoken on screen
Croatian · English · French
Release dates
Canada · April 25, 2014
Theatrical
No release date listed for United States.
More from Carole Laganière
Other films they directed, best known first.
If you liked Absences
Picks that share its genres, themes, cast and crew.