Canadian Premiere
In her elegant feature debut, film artist and choreographer Sarah Friedland delivers a deceptively conventional study of an elderly woman’s transition to assisted living. Filmed at an actual care home, the attention to mundane detail and peripheral workplace dynamics are particularly resonant, anchoring and contextualizing the character’s dementia-driven spiral.
Drawing from her previous, movement-focused work, the director is interested in the physical expression of cognitive decline, mining the moments of stillness, apparent clarity, and repetitive tasks that the body and mind cling to when one starts to lose one’s grip on reality. Kathleen Chalfant commands the screen with absolute poise in her thoughtfully mannered portrait of a woman trying to hold on to her dignity. Each gesture, line, and action are precisely calibrated to convey her altered perception. This is a rare, poignant take on the subject that looks from the inside out with an impressively sober lens.
Best Director: Orizzonti, Venice 2024; Best Actress: Orizzonti, Venice 2024; Lion of the Future Award for Debut Film, Venice 2024
Presented by
Media Partner
Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle Smith, Andy McQueen, H. Jon Benjamin
USA
2024
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Alexandra Byer, Sarah Friedland, Matthew Thurm
Screenwriter
Sarah Friedland
Cinematography
Gabe C. Elder
Editor
Aacharee “Ohm” UngsriwongEntered
Production Design
Stephanie Osin Cohen
Sarah Friedland
Sarah Friedland is a filmmaker and choreographer working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies. Her projects have been presented at festivals like the New York Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, BAM, and in venues such as MoMA and Performa19 Biennial. A Brown University graduate, she was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2023”. Her debut feature, Familiar Touch, premiered at the 81st Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti Competition.
Photo by Anna Ritsch
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Secret in Their Eyes
This month's Talking Pictures screening is a multi-layered, poignant thriller interweaving the personal lives of a prosecution investigator (Ricardo Darin) and a judge, with a manhunt spanning twenty-five years. Stay for cookies, coffee and a chat after!
American Doctor
One of the most powerful documentaries of the year, this puts us smack in the open wound that is Gaza, filtered through the eyes of three American surgeons (of Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian backgrounds) compelled to do their utmost to alleviate harm.
