Weightless

In her debut feature, which premiered at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival, Sara Fgaier has crafted an emotionally and formally sophisticated monument to the link between cinema and memory. Ethnomusicologist Gian (Andrea Renzi) has suddenly developed amnesia; following a failed suicide attempt, his daughter Miriam (Sara Serraiocco), whom he no longer recognizes, gives him a diary he wrote in his twenties that details a love affair with a mysterious woman. A deluge of flashbacks (punctuated with striking use of archival footage) follows as Gian seeks to recover his memory of this woman while also asking himself how he could’ve forgotten her in the first place. A stylish and assured debut, Weightless sensitively and thoughtfully poses an agonizing question: How would it feel to forget the love of your life?