Family Romance, LLC

Watershed Recommends: Fri 3 - Thu 9 July

Streaming

Please note: This event took place in July 2020

The latest from director Werner Herzog (it's been described as his 'strangest movie in years' so that's saying something) is a self-financed micro-budget feature about Japan's unique 'rent-a-family' industry.

Love is a business at Family Romance, a company that rents human stand-ins for any occasion. Founder Yuichi Ishii helps make his client's dreams come true. But when the mother of 12-year-old Mahiro hires Ishii to impersonate her missing father, the line between acting and reality starts to blur. Along the way, Herzog explores tangents of other instances of willed self-deception and fantasy, including visits to a hotel run by humanoid robots and a funeral parlour where people can pay to experience their own memorials.


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