Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, The Mourning Forest is set deep in the mountains of western Nara Prefecture. Shigeki is a widower suffering from dementia living in a retirement home under the care of Machiko, who is mourning the loss of her child. Shigeki and Machiko gradually come to understand one another’s sorrow.

One day, they go visit the grave of Shigeki's wife in the forest, but there’s something Shigeki is searching for but can’t explain.