Jim Jarmusch is back behind the camera after five years.
The auteur has formally announced his latest film “Father Mother Sister Brother,” his first since 2019’s “The Dead Don’t Die.” Jarmusch is reuniting with “The Dead Don’t Die” and “Paterson” actor Adam Driver, who is also leading Francis Ford Coppola’s buzzy Cannes debut “Megalopolis,” as well as his “Coffee & Cigarettes” star Cate Blanchett and frequent collaborator Tom Waits.
“Father Mother Sister Brother” is described as an anthology film following three separate stories centered on strained relationships between adult children and their parents. Each of the trio of plotlines take place in different countries: “Father” is set in the Northeast U.S., “Mother” takes place in Dublin, Ireland, and “Sister Brother” is based in Paris, France.
The film is a “series of character studies, quiet, observational and non-judgmental. A comedy, but interwoven with threads of melancholy,” the synopsis continues.
Vicky Krieps, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Indya Moore, and Luka Sabbat also star. Writer/director Jarmusch is completing postproduction as Match Factory handles its international sales at Cannes. Gersh will handle North American rights.
“Father Mother Sister Brother” is produced by Charles Gillibert, Joshua Astrachan, Carter Logan, and Attila Yücer. The film is produced and presented by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, MUBI, and Fremantle company The Apartment, with Jarmusch’s Badjetlag and Gillibert’s CG Cinema. In Ireland, Richard Bolger and Conor Barry at Hail Mary Pictures co-produced with financing provided by Fís Éireann and Screen Ireland. Cinema Inutile brought equity finance.
Jarmusch previously told The Guardian that he wrote “Father Mother Sister Brother” with a specific cast in mind, quipping that he just had to “wrangle” the collaborators together for the production itself.
“Actors are like wild animals that I have to somehow corral because they have so much going on. So, I’m trying to corral some incredible wild animals – I hope I can capture them,” Jarmusch said in 2023. “I’m a control freak in that I have to do it my own way. I have to choose all my own collaborators. I have to have final cut. I have to produce it through my own company. And as for the people financing the films, I allow them to give me notes on a rough cut but I always, contractually, have absolutely no obligation to use them.”
“Father Mother Sister Brother” also may have no music, as Jarmusch explained during the 2023 Overlook Film Festival (via The Playlist).
“It’s a very subtle film; it’s very quiet,” Jarmusch said. “And I think music could move it too much one way — it’s a funny and sad film, right? It sort of has both woven in. I don’t know if I want to have music to add some other thing over it. It doesn’t really want it so far.”
