Contains some foul language, mature themes, peril, and sexuality. Viewer discretion is advised. Rooftop Lempicka is not suitable for a younger audience.

Ideals and inspirations can motivate one to achieve personal goals or adopt the beliefs that uphold an ideal. Sometimes, that ideal or inspiration – whether in the form of a person, a relationship with someone else, or some intangible belief that fuels a drive to be the best possible versions of ourselves – falls to the wayside, leaving us unsure why we regarded that ideal so highly in the first place.

Cú Nhảy –The Jump and From a Distance (Aus der Ferne) examine difficult father-child relations that upend the intoxicating promises of mass media or a new, safer homeland. Elsewhere, Re:connection and We’re Only Strangers ask how a friendship or a relationship continues – or dissolves – when fissures appear. To conclude, Ba Noi and Rooftop Lempicka cast off youthful perceptions to acknowledge the varying ways others leave lasting imprints on a life, and the unease that lingers when their absence leaves questions unanswered.

Amid the remnants of a broken ideal, there springs these notions: that life need not be spectacular, that its beauty can be found (and shared with others) through our labors and mundane experiences. The manner in which the characters and subjects in these films learn to recover from their disappointments, though varying across cultures and continents, are fundamentally the same. Their paths to self-renewal are all at different points: a traumatized stasis, a greater appreciation for everyday familial love, and genuine reconciliation.

By Eric Nong