Ninh moves through the city installing decibel meters in homes and public spaces. He is trained to register noise, yet the disturbances shaping his own life are harder to measure. Living with his aging mother, separated from his wife and children, he longs to repair the distance between them, and between his parents, who have stopped speaking to one another.
Moving between intimate family drama, dry humour and the supernatural, Hearing listens to what remains after words have failed. It is a tender, sensuous film about estrangement across generations, the cycles we inherit and the fragile possibility of finding one another again.
Lê Bảo builds Hearing through carefully composed images, cavernous interiors and a soundscape in which the ordinary is never entirely stable. A cemetery, a zoo and a family home become acoustic chambers filled with uneasy presences. When sound crosses a threshold, it is transformed into an intense blue-violet light, making buried emotions suddenly visible. Mental Overdrive’s electronic score and Vincent Villa’s Dolby Atmos design do not simply accompany the film; they shape its mysterious inner world.
The film is presented in collaboration with Films From the South and supported by Sørfond.
