A woman crosses the city to reach her missing son’s apartment and retrieve her cat, the only tenant left in the house. Looking for the animal in the rooms, the woman is confronted with traces of a vanished life. But in the silence of the house, something magical and unexpected could still find room.

DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
“Figlio” (Son is a film about absence, and how spaces retain the memory of what is no longer there. Empty homes—especially those abandoned by someone we love—become suspended places, almost outside of time. I wanted to explore that limbo: a woman enters to look for a cat but is drawn into a deeper search—for her son, for the bond that has disappeared, for the intangible layers of loss. I chose a dry, almost documentary style to remain close to a sense of everyday realism, following the protagonist without commentary, allowing her body and silent reactions to carry the weight of the story. This stripped-down visual language is, however, just the surface. Beneath it, something magical begins to stir: a damaged ping-pong paddle becomes a portal into another dimension. The film thus shifts course—from stark realism to a surreal, dreamlike finale. This narrative and stylistic reversal is essential to me, because it mirrors the process of moving through grief. Step by step, the woman finds a way to inhabit the void. In the midst of loss, the film itself transforms. Annika Strøhm, an extraordinary Norwegian actress with a strong background in theatre, brings all of this to life. Her cold, almost cynical gaze gradually softens—but never entirely. Figlio is, at heart, an attempt to give shape to emptiness without filling it.