In Absence
2024 · 26m
Directed by Paul Nevison
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, essay film
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Born from the director's own loss of his mother at age nine, a film explores suffering and the possibility of restoration after tragic loss — the paradox of 'bright sadness' and the hope of familial solidarity.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's formally restrained when you'd expect catharsis, which is either the film's most stubborn choice or its biggest miscalculation — Nevison refuses the easy gesture, and that refusal *is* the thing, even if it leaves you hanging.
A deliberate essay-film that inherits the lineage of Agnès Varda and Chris Marker — the way it holds grief at arm's length while allowing tenderness to accumulate through structure and repetition shows a director conscious of how cinema itself can memorialize without resolving.
The decision to let silence and negative space do the emotional work instead of underscoring or montage reveals Nevison's restraint, and it's that specific refusal to manipulate that makes the rare moments of connection between family members land with actual weight.