The Mother and the Bear

Opens Friday, January 2, 2026

In a snow-swept Winnipeg, school teacher Sumi (Leere Park) is hospitalized after a fall. On hearing the news, her anxious mother, Sara (Kim Ho-jung), flies over from Seoul to be with her comatose daughter — and once Sara sets herself up in the young woman’s apartment, she discovers she doesn’t really know Sumi at all.

Sara despairs about her daughter’s single status, so she immediately starts catfishing the pleasant Min (Jonathan Kim) to be Sumi’s boyfriend — once she wakes up, of course — and also gets unwittingly entangled with Min’s estranged father, Sam (Won-Jae Lee), who runs a Korean restaurant in the city. As Sam and the widowed Sara connect over their mutual melancholies, a chance meeting with Sumi’s co-worker Amaya (Amara Pedroso Saquel) leads Sara to learn more about the life from which her daughter has chosen to exclude her.

A unique mash-up of genres, this stylized, whimsical story of crossed wires, secret lives, and conflicting agendas marks a bold new direction for filmaker Johnny Ma (Old Stone).

• Country Canada, Chile
• Language Korean with English subtitles, English
• Running Time 100 minutes
• Format DCP
• Distributor Dekanalog
• Director Johnny Ma
• Cast Kim Ho-jung, Won-Jae Lee, Jonathan Kim, Amara Pedroso Saquel, Leere Park

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