Our Little Sister (2016) — Japan

The premise of this quiet movie is quite simple.  Three sisters — Sachi, Yoshino, and Chika, live alone in their grandmother's house after their father deserted them for another woman and their mother left to live with another man.  When they travel to another town to attend the funeral of their estranged father, they end up inviting their thirteen-year-old half-sister Suzu, whom they hadn't even known about, to return and live with them.  And thus begins the slow-moving drama of daily life among four women.  Family history.  A new school and soccer team for Suzu.  Gossip and giggles about boys.  Making home made plum wine from their garden. Collecting shells at the beach.  And, in almost every scene, food.  The Latina theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz described this intersection of the sacred and the mundane, the unexpected and the unexceptional, as lo cotidiano, "the daily thing" or "sacred ordinariness."  "Our Little Sister" won Picture of the Year prize from the Japan Academy, and was an official selection for the Cannes festival.  The movie is in Japanese with English sub-titles.