Family Romance, LLC.

'Family Romance, LLC.' revolves around the real-life rent-a-family business that exists in Japan, where you can pay professionals to fulfil familial functions for you. In the film, Yuichi Ishii is working for an agency called 'Family Romance' and is regularly hired to play somebody's father, friend or co-worker. His latest job is pretending to be the long-lost father of a twelve-year-old girl named Mahiro Tanimoto. Ishii was hired after Mahiro's mother worries that her daughter would suffer for never knowing her father. Ishii encourages Mahiro to share her concerns and doubts before reporting them back to her mother. Employees at Family Romance are not allowed to genuinely love their clients and yet the more time that Ishii spends with Mahiro and her mother, the more he feels like a true father to her. When his contract is up, will he be able to let his new family go?

'Family Romance, LLC.' is written and directed by Werner Herzog. It was shot in Japan with amateur actors to give a sense of verisimilitude to the plot. Herzog's other works include 'On Death Row', 'Meeting Gorbachev', 'Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin', 'Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World', 'Happy People: A Year in the Taiga' and 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams'.