A JAPANESE film that chronicles the relationship that develops between the mother of a murderer and the father of the victim won the top prize at Switzerland’s Locarno International Film Festival at the weekend (August 12, 2007).

Ai No Yokan (The Rebirth) is directed by Masahiro Kobayashi and begins as a young woman named Nokiro is being interrogated because her teenage daughter has killed one of her classmates.

At the same time, a man, Junichi (played by Kobayashi himself) is also interrogated, as it was his daughter who was killed.

The film then jumps forward a year to a small industrial town in the Hokkaido region, where Junichi is now shuttling between his lodgings at an inn and his job at a foundry.

Every day he sees Noriko who works as a cook at the inn. They never speak or exchange looks but recognise one another, until one day he decides to buy her a present.

As a result, little details in their lives change and a tension develops between them as their existence becomes stronger to each other.

Eventually, they who had given up on life find themselves redeemed by it and gradually emerge from their grief to embark on a phase of questioning. Eventually, they find themselves overwhelmed by a love that transforms them despite themselves.

The film was chosen as winner of the festival by a jury chaired by Swiss actress Irene Jacob. It was the 60th year of the Locarno film festival.

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