SIFF 2025 #3: Gentle stories of connection

In a judgy world where people are more and more divided, it was nice to see reflections of kindness, empathy, and connection in the following films.

Many SIFF 2025 films streaming through midnight, June 1st. See all the SIFF streaming selections here.

The Nature of Invisible Things (6/8)
Caregiving, especially by women, is front and center in this gentle Brazilian film about family and the support of a greater community. Ten-year-old Gloria shadows her mom Antônia, a nurse, at a city hospital during the summer. One day Gloria encounters Sofia, a kid her age, who is there for her hospitalized grandmother who has dementia. The girls become fast friends, telling stories, lurking in closets, and visiting random patients. When it becomes clear that Sofia’s grandmother would do better back in her rural village, Antônia offers to work as a nurse for the old woman, giving her own daughter an opportunity to have a summer playing in the countryside with her new friend. The summer unfolds with quiet revelations and some magical realism about death and rebirth—both literal (young Gloria has a scar from a heart transplant) and more symbolic (the community’s acceptance of one character’s gender identity). It’s a sweet film about nurturing and caregiving at all stages of life.

Odd Fish (5/8)
I have to admit, I wanted to like this film more. Boisterous Hjalti and his quiet business partner Björn are longtime best friends that run an acclaimed seasonal seafood restaurant in small-town Iceland. One day, Björn announces that she is now Birna, her true self. She had been transitioning in the off-season, just awaiting her father’s death to become the person she was always meant to be. Needless to say, Hjalti is kind of a dick about it. He’s a bit of a blowhard, playing up his burly fisherman persona (even though the other burly fisherman in their circle have no problem with Birna). The women who work at their restaurant of course are lovely and accepting to Birna, and it becomes a wait to see when Hjalti will grow up about it, especially when they have the opportunity to expand their business into a year-round destination restaurant. Birna is by far a more interesting character than Hjalti, but the story ends up focusing more on Hjalti’s transition to become a good family man and a more accepting person, which of course makes HIM a better person over all. I guess it was not the story I wanted to see.

Summer’s Camera (4/8)
In this Korean teen drama, Summer is a high school girl that hides behind the camera lens of her late father, an avid photographer who died a year earlier. One day, she spies a cute girl playing soccer out on the high school field, and click! She is smitten. When she finally develops the last roll of her father’s film, she discovers images of a man she doesn’t know, and slowly pieces together a separate, second life of her father, away from Summer and her mom. Summer’s budding queerness is something she hesitantly connects with her own father’s secrets, leading her to find this man from the photos and learn more about her late dad. I will say, the film certainly looks lovely, as a movie about taking pictures really should. But Summer’s own teen romance with soccer girl Yeonwoo seems at the level of a playground relationship. (The first date question, “Do you want be my girlfriend?” sounded to these ears like, “Do you want to go with me?” from 3rd grade). That is probably simply a cultural difference, for sure, but I hard a hard time feeling invested in the relationship. A little more interesting was Summer’s strangely relentless pursual of her father’s friend as the only adult to whom she could ask about the queer experience. Perhaps the whole film is aimed more at a tween audience, but it was all a bit gauzy for my taste.

Cat Town, U.S.A. (7/8)
Terry and Bruce are a lovely couple in Florida who run Cat’s Cradle, a cat sanctuary for “un-adoptable” senior kitties to live out their lives. Bruce had built a small playhouse-scaled frontier town for their kids to play in decades ago. Now he and Terry are retired (and seniors themselves!), so they’ve transformed their huge, fun yard into a safe outdoor space for older kitties to roam and explore. Ramps lead to castles, catwalks connect different areas, a stocked pond entertains… but best of all, the kitties get to live out their best lives loved and cared for. The opening scene shows the couple scattering the ashes of one Mr. Cheeks, a moment that seems right out of Errol Morris’ classic pet cemetery documentary Gates of Heaven. But try not to get emotional later as Bruce breaks down and weeps when remembering how awesome a cat Mr. Cheeks was, a cat who sounds like he was a true boss. I have to admit, I was a little hesitant to watch this one because I lost my own beloved senior kitty PJ less than three weeks ago… but I’m glad I did. At a little over an hour, this documentary may be short but it’s packed with love.