The meeting between Nagisa and Natsuo on the seashore is marked by glances and silence. It’s summer, and the coolness of the rocky beach should provide a thrilling warmth, but their relationship seems destined to be lost in the deluge. Perhaps it’s love, perhaps it’s a lack of communication. It’s winter, however, when screenwriter Li arrives at a guesthouse in the mountains, run by the quiet Benzo; and the intrinsically solitary project of writing on the contrary becomes the unexpected occasion for an encounter. With the lightness of a proverb and the subtlety of a haiku, director Sho Miyake explores the relationship between humans and the environment, never finding a clear and bright solution. The colors of the world don’t speak the language of people, and life seems like a calm but unpredictable river. A double track of unconnected stories that speak to each other through subtle references, awarded the top prize at the last Locarno Film Festival.