26’56”

2018

Love and sadness intersect in The Pioneer, which is set in an alternate Japan on the cusp of the Summer Olympics. The film explores the universal experience of forgetting, juxtaposed against the individual plight of the narrator’s mother whose condition has steadily declined over the years in an extended, increasingly despondent struggle with early onset Alzheimer’s. The Pioneer is a love letter to this forgetful mother – a simultaneous symbol of infinite sadness and unparalleled beauty.