110 minutes – Drama
Language: English
Release date: June 7, 2024
Production companies: Anamorphic Media, Scythia Films, Current Flow Entertainment, The Solution Entertainment Group
Canadian distributor: Mongrel Media
U.S. distributor: Lionsgate Films

Based on Israeli filmmaker Savi Gabizon’s Ga’Agua, Longing is a Canada-Israel coproduction costarring Richard Gere and Suzanne Clément. Gere plays a well-off, childless New York bachelor named Daniel, who has his life changed with a single phone call from his ex-girlfriend. They meet at a fancy restaurant where, though tears, she tells him that when they broke up 20 years ago she was pregnant. She also tells him that two weeks ago, he crashed through the railings of a bridge into the river below and died. He travels to Canada where his son lived and died and decodes to stay longer to see what he might learn about the child he never knew. Longing is a story about parenthood, about the desire to be a parent and the afflictions that come with it. It is a journey that creates near-laboratory conditions for the examination of the hidden aspects of fatherhood.

Longing was produced with the participation of Anamorphic Media, The Solution, Telefilm Canada, Ontario Creates, Israel Film Fund (R.A.), The Ministry of Culture and Sports, The Israel Film Council, and Crave. Filming began on September 24, 2022 in Toronto, Hamilton, Cambridge and Kitchener, Ontario. The cast is listed in order of appearance.

Thom Ernst reviews Longing for Northerstars.ca