Jin scowls into the camera when her sister – the filmmaker – asks about her earliest memories. No wonder these memories are anything but pleasant. Jin was born in the 1990s, during China’s one-child policy. It was normal then for unborn girls to be aborted – right up to the last month of a pregnancy, because boys were preferred. Living babies were also ruthlessly dumped in the garbage, or in the woods. Jin survived for a week in a box on the streets.
During a hot summer in Quebec’s countryside, a recently settled couple struggles. Marie (35), a sound artist in lack of inspiration doubts her relationship with her partner. The arrival of Noée (25), a young French traveler who mourns her father, will destabilise the status quo and trouble their neighbour Yan (30), a solitary farmer, by awakening new desires. In Montreal, Eva (15), a teenage Filipina who recently moved to Canada, tries to find new roots in the city. Since her arrival, she suffers from insomnia, often interrupted by strange dreams of her hometown in the Philippines. Jeanne (25) is having trouble finishing her thesis on the work of Marie, the artist in the countryside. As Eva tries to anchor herself, Jeanne plans to leave everything. The Splendour of Life is a sensual film that explores how we relate to each other in a changing world that transcends us - an invitation to live to the fullest.
In this episodic dramatic comedy Francella plays a whopping 16 different characters which “will confront conflicts reflecting the invisible pressure under which we live in a modern-day megalopolis,” said Cohn and Duprat. “The film presents a panorama of our ‘national being’ in a scathing and sarcastic but at the same time reflexive tone. Argentina is a country of immigrants, whose character is a sum of different origins and nationalities: Millions of Europeans came and mixed with Native Argentinians, creating a powerful and singular idiosyncrasy,” they added.
river’s Ed centers on a group of teens who steal their school’s driver’s ed car to go on a road trip to help a high school senior track down his college-freshman girlfriend and win her back.