2024 - 69th Edition

Familiar Touch

Sarah Friedland
United States
 - 2024
Estreno nacional
 Ruth, an elderly woman with dementia, leaves her home for what appears to be a date, only to discover that the place she is being taken to is actually a nursing home. Sarah Friedland's debut feature, winner of three awards in the Horizons Section of the Venice Film Festival, including Best Actress for Kathleen Chalfant and Best New Director, portrays a rarely depicted point of view, the harsh and sudden process of adapting to an unfamiliar environment as a senior citizen. Narrated through Ruth's choreography of everyday movements and the physical language surrounding the care she receives, we witness her complex daily relearning, the new faces and obstacles that appear in her path. This so-called coming-of-age restructures the genre of transition to adulthood to show that we are always in a situation of physical and mental change, in a process of constant maturation that lasts a lifetime and becomes increasingly difficult. 
Sarah Friedland

Filmmaker and choreographer. She graduated from Brown University’s department of Modern Culture and Media and started her career assisting filmmakers including Steve McQueen, Mike S. Ryan, and Kelly Reichardt. From 2021-2022, she was both a Pina Bausch Fellow for Choreography and a NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Film/Video. Her short film trilogy, ‘Movement Exercises’ (2017-2022), is distributed by Video Data Bank. Sarah has been working in creative aging for the last eight years, as a caregiver to artists with dementia, and as a teaching artist facilitating intergenerational films and workshops for older adults. ‘Familiar Touch’, her first feature film, won the awards for best director and best actress in the Orizzonti section of the Venice International Film Festival, and the Luigi De Laurentiis Award to the Best Debut Film.

Screenings

O.V. in English with Spanish subtitles
Sat. 19, 21:45
Presentation
Q&A
Sun. 20, 16:45
Presentation
Q&A
Wed. 23, 12:30
DIRECTOR
Sarah Friedland
SCREENPLAY
Sarah Friedland
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Gabe C. Elder
EDITOR
Aacharee ‘Ohm’ Ungsriwong
SOUND
Eli Cohn
PRODUCTION
Alexandra Byer, Matthew Thurm, Sarah Friedland
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Rathaus Films, Go For Thurm
CAST
Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle, Andy McQueen, H. Jon Benjamin
RUNNING TIME
91 min.
TYPE
Largometraje
FORMAT
Color
YEAR OF PRODUCTION
2024
COUNTRY
United States
CONTACT
Memento Films International

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