[Note: In the wake ofthe Tribeca Film Festival's postponement this year,The Hollywood Reporteris reviewing select entries that elected to premiere digitally.] An alumna of the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence program who has earned attention with her short films, Israeli writer-director Ruthy Pribar makes an assured feature debut, balancing sobriety with emotional intensity in Asia.
Named for the Russian immigrant mother played by Alena Yiv with hard edges that don't conceal the yearning underneath, the movie is actually a twin character study paralleling Asia's loneliness, exhaustion and melancholy with the cruelly interrupted adolescence of her daughter Vika.