Cherry Blossoms

Germany’s foremost filmmakers, Doris Dörrie (Enlightenment Guaranteed) directs this tender, emotionally intense and profoundly moving story of marital love. Only Trudi knows that her husband Rudi is suffering from a terminal illness. She decides not to tell him and convinces him to visit their family in Berlin. There a giant change in the relationship happens which takes the story to Tokyo in the midst of the cherry blossom festival, a celebration of beauty, impermanence and new beginnings.

“This portrait of an aging couple is a deeply rewarding, heartbreaking, utterly worthy successor to two films which inspired it: Ozu's Tokyo Story and Leo McCarey's great, forgotten 1937 Make Way for Tomorrow.” (David Noh, Film Journal International)

“It is a seldom-told story in an essentially youth-oriented, escapist movie industry, but when it is told sublimely well, as it is by Ms. Dörrie now, and by McCarey in 1937, and by Ozu in 1953, it becomes a film for the ages.” (Andrew Sarris, New York Observer)

“Doris Dorrie's Cherry Blossoms is both a tender tale of cultural crossings and a double portrait of grief.” (A.O. Scott, New York Times)

“A surprisingly deep tale about a middle-aged German couple discovering love on the brink of death.” (Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter)