Screening Dates
In Person: Heather Young

“Heather Young once again brings exceptional nuance to themes of loneliness and isolation … A bittersweet portrayal of the universal need for companionship.”

VIFF 2024

There, There
Canada 2024
Heather Young
100 min. DCP

Halifax filmmaker Heather Young follows up her acclaimed feature debut Murmur (2019) with this equally assured and empathetic work of Maritime realism, a twinned portrait of two isolated women at opposite stages of life. The branching story begins with the flickering signs of dementia in the elderly but independent Ruth (Marlene Jewell). Save for the pigeons she feeds, company comes by way of in-home caregiver Shannon (Katie Mattattal), a young mother-to-be on the precipice of transformation with neither parent nor partner by her side. Writer-director-editor Young sequences her sophomore film with delicate precision, calibrating drama across parallel narratives—and on either side of an expertly placed ellipsis—in tandem with a rigorous naturalism so integral to the film’s design. Photographed by UBC alum Catherine Lutes with sensitivity to light and interiors, this austere yet tender meditation on loneliness cements Young among the best working directors in Canada.

Special Mention, Best Canadian Film
Festival du nouveau cinéma 2024

preceded by

A Soft Touch
Canada 2025
Heather Young
20 min. DCP

Ghosted by a person owing her money, an aging woman in a seniors’ housing complex, alone and beset with health issues, resorts to last measures in Young’s melancholic new short.

The January 8 screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Heather Young.

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