LIDO, Venice, Italy — Jim Jarmusch, for 4-plus decades a towering figure in American independent cinema, took home the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Gold Lion, with his triptych “Father Mother Sister Brother.”

Three separate films, set in three different countries, “FMSB” arrives in Boston Jan. 8 as a sweet-sour, happy-sad look at familial reunions.

First, there’s Tom Waits’ sly, semi-reclusive dad being visited by his adult kids (Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik). Then in Dublin Charlotte Rampling’s bestselling author serves a strained lunch to her semi-estranged daughters (Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps). While in Paris, a pair of siblings (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat), mourn the death of their parents in a plane crash with a final visit to the apartment that was their home.

How did this uniquely constructed, darkly comic, seriously sad movie come to be?

“I don’t really know where the hell it came from,” Jarmusch, 72, began. “I usually carry ideas around, sometimes for many years before I finally write. This was very fast, like three weeks.

“I don’t know really where it comes from. I’ve always loved the form of different chapters in films, which is certainly not new in literature. And not new in cinema either.

“This film was very carefully constructed to accumulate. So, if you were to show one chapter without the others, I would be mortified. Because I worked very hard to write with this structure.

“In this case, the film (you see) was very close to what I had imagined. Often, I embrace mistakes and accidents. I’m open to things changing. But this, oddly, stayed quite close to my original imagination.”

Cities and places are hallmarks of a Jarmusch picture. Why Paris, Dublin and New Jersey?

“New Jersey,” he explained, “was a union question. I had to find a location within 30 miles of New York City for union rules or my budget would explode.

“This was 29.5 miles from New York! A lovely location. Dublin was important to me because Charlotte’s character is an English writer who lives in Dublin.

“Also, Dublin is very welcoming. Writers don’t pay taxes. In fact, they celebrate writers. And also, I love Ireland.

“Paris is the second place in my life that I love so deeply. I don’t know why — it’s very close for me.

“In fact, I’m working on my French artist visa now because I intend to shoot a new film in France actually. But also, there’s the idea of these two young Americans having had Paris be an important part of their lives with their very wild parents who are now gone.

“So yes, it’s true, cities are incredibly important to me. I tend to fall in love with most of them.”

“Father Mother Sister Brother” opens Jan. 8

Director Jim Jarmusch, winner of the Golden Lion for best film for ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’, poses for photographers at the awards photo call during September’s 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)