Cottontail (2024)

After the death of his wife, Kenzaburo and his son Toshi receive an unexpected letter from beyond the grave. Akiko, their wife and mother, asks them to scatter her ashes at the place she loved most as a child – Lake Windermere. Surprised by this unexpected request, father and son are initially at loggerheads over their next steps.

The two men, along with Toshi’s wife Satsuki and young daughter Emi, eventually travel together to England from Tokyo to fulfil Akiko’s final wish. But Kenzaburo keeps losing himself in memories of Akiko as his relationship with Toshi becomes increasingly fraught. With little knowledge of where he is going and barely any English, Kenzaburo abandons his family in London and heads to the Lake District on his own with Akiko’s ashes.

Dir. Patrick Dickinson, Japan/UK, 2023, 94 mins. With Lily Franky, Ryo Nishikido, Ciarán Hinds, Aoife Hinds

Certificate 12A

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