Bella Vista

A quiet, wintry drift through alienation and belonging, more mood than plot, asking you to sit with its loneliness.

Directed by

Vera Brunner-Sung

Genres

Drama

Starring

Kathleen Wise, Hiroka Matsushima

Overview

Bella Vista is a fiction/documentary hybrid that tells the story of a woman at a crossroads. In the dead of winter in the mountain valley of Missoula, Montana, Doris has just returned to the U.S. after years teaching English abroad. At the local university, she forms a small community with her class of international students. But outside she is alienated, unable to form meaningful connections. Doris explores the town, coming across clues to a recent legacy of displaced persons: an old photograph of an Indian camp, a row of Japanese graves in the local cemetery. And she is haunted by a strange encounter with a boy, who lives in a motel on the edge of town. As winter begins to thaw, she and her students must consider the complexities of adapting and belonging. What if home is no longer a place, but just an idea? Could you lose yourself completely? The next decision they make will redefine not only their lives, but their very identities.

How it feels

Melancholic, bleak, earnest and eerie. Slow-burning and demanding.

About

Isolation, identity, immigration, loneliness

Content

Mild language. No violence, gore or sexual content.

Note

Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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