Synopsis

1986. A girl, a boy, a dog named after the first woman launched into space: it's the night of January 6th, and their baby girl is about to be born. A domestic crowd gathers around this event. Grandfathers writing acrostics, grandmothers tasked with choosing names: they are the sentinels who keep watch, mark the minutes, knowing everything from beforehand, forever. Futura is born, Laika falls ill. Does something always end, for something else to begin? 1996. It's the night of the Epiphany, the little girl is ten years old, a little swimmer with her whole future ahead of her and so much courage in her legs. The gift she's about to open isn't just any gift. It's a breathing gift. Dirty, sick, skeletal—a puppy who perhaps won't survive the night. The little girl closes her eyes, while her mother thinks of all the things that begin while others end. 2011. Again, a girl, a boy, a dog. Once again, it's Epiphany night, and yet another wait. The kids have just shared a bit of their past, they're about to begin something, while something else around them fades away, forever. But perhaps it can, must, be this way: like January, which begins at the end, where December and an old year give way to the new.