Together

Distance and tenderness on an uncertain road for two

Russian director Denis Shabaev sets off on a road trip with his daughter to her grandmother's house, but the true destination is uncertain. The absence of a mother gives way for father and daughter to have a journey of two solitudes, finding themselves inside a car or in the open air of the various stops they make along the route. This inside-out, tension-and-release dynamic portrays, in Together, the intricacies of a filial relationship that oscillates between distance and tenderness.

Like her father, the girl sometimes films from her own point of view, making the trip a fractal experience full of unexpected perspectives. A hotel room in the middle of the road becomes an opportunity to edit the film being made, a film that is interrupted, as is the communication between the two characters, by the constant phone calls Shabaev receives. These calls are reminders of the professional obligations of a father trying to heal his absence, set against the playful world of a child who is beginning to sense the changes ahead.

Situated somewhere between a personal diary and an experimental film, the documentary provides an intimate look into a complicated and tender relationship. The two cameras pointed face to face capture different fears inhabiting a single shared space. The central question the film poses is simple but unresolved: should they turn back, or continue travelling together?