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WE ARE THE FRUITS OF THE FOREST

by Rithy Panh

synopsis

After rehab, Laura returns to her family’s Cape Cod home. Once the face of her late father’s renowned dance company, she built an identity tethered to his legacy and the cost of growing up in his shadow. Laura’s functional alcoholism, long ignored by everybody, finally reached a breaking point after a drunk-driving accident with her young son in the car. Now sober, she comes home changed, but to a family unprepared for this. Her husband Martin welcomes her cautiously, torn between devotion and mistrust. Their teenage daughter Josie meets Laura with hostility, while her son Felix remains distant. Over several days by the sea, family moments become pressure points, revealing buried anger, financial strain and the fragility of reconciliation. As Laura’s former colleagues push her to return to the career she abandoned, she confronts a deeper question: Who is she without the identity that once justified her self-destruction? The film unfolds as an intimate character study that charts Laura’s path from denial towards acceptance as she approaches an understanding that healing is not linear and that love, sobriety and family demand a willingness to remain present in uncertainty.

international title: We Are the Fruits of the Forest
original title: Nous sommes les fruits de la forêt
country: Cambodia, France
year: 2026
genre: documentary
directed by: Rithy Panh
film run: 87'
screenplay: Rithy Panh
cinematography by: Prum Mesar, Mourng Vet, Cheng Socheat, Sok Chan Rado, Rithy Panh
producer: Catherine Dussart
production: CDP - Catherine Dussart Productions, ARTE France, Anupheap Production (KH)

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