Skip to main content
North of Normal film image, director Carly Stone

North of Normal

This event has passed

Adapting Cea Sunrise Person’s beloved memoir for the big screen, Carly Stone (The New Romantic) brings both compassion and energy to this tale of a young woman’s bid to come of age while living with a mother experiencing arrested development.

Having spent her early years in a wilderness commune founded in the 1970s by her anti-establishment grandfather Dick (Robert Carlyle), Cea (initially River Price-Maenpaa, then Amanda Fix) is forced to shed her alternative upbringing and acclimatize to civilization when her mother, Michelle (Sarah Gadon), tires of Dick’s chauvinistic reign. Granted, this doesn’t keep Michelle from careening between bad romances as she and Cea carve out a nomadic existence.

Adorning every scene with enticing period details, Stone ensures that Gadon and Fix’s exceptional performances serve as her film’s foundation. Detailing the humour and heartbreak that come from family dysfunction, North of Normal derives engrossing drama from the difficult decisions these women must make to survive and thrive.

 

Q&A Oct 5

 

Presented by

Media Partner

Global BC Logo

Director
Cast

Sarah Gadon, James D’Arcy, Amanda Fix, River Price-Maenpaa, Benedict Samuel, Robert Carlyle

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2022

Language

English

18+
90 min
Drama Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Serial Mom

Dir. John Waters
95 min

John Waters' killer comedy features an uproariously funny, marvellously malicious performance from Kathleen Turner as a housewife with impeccable manners and very handy with a kitchen knife.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Short Cuts

Dir. Robert Altman
187 min

Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories, Short Cuts weaves between 8 or 9 overlapping storylines and 22 characters. it's a teeming, caustic and compassionate human comedy; a singularly astringent, often cynical view of America and Americana.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

Dir. François Girard
93 min

A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Groundhog Day

Dir. Harold Ramis
101 min

If you haven't seen Groundhog Day that must be rectified immediately. Bill Murray is at his best as the TV weatherman stuck in a purgatory that might just be paradise.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Schindler's List

Dir. Steven Spielberg
195 min

One of the most acclaimed films of the 90s, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark is the story of a German industrialist whose conscience is stirred to save his Jewish workers from the camps.

Free event.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Dazed and Confused

Dir. Richard Linklater
102 min

The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Executive Producer

Joel Reilly, Patrick Patterson, Sarah Gadon, Rob Connolly, Michael Risley, Adrian Love, Noah Segal, Berry Meyerowitz, Jeff Sackman

Producer

Kyle Mann, Jonathan Bronfman

Screenwriter

Alexandra Weir

Cinematography

David Jones

Editor

Orlee Buium

Production Design

Alexis DeBad

Original Music

Electric Youth

Director

Carly Stone headshot, North of Normal director

Carly Stone

Carly Stone is a filmmaker from Toronto. She wrote and directed The New Romantic, which premiered in the Narrative Competition at SXSW 2018, where it won Special Jury Recognition for Best First Feature. She has also written on CBC’s award-winning comedy Kim’s Convenience. She graduated from the American Film Institute in 2014.

Filmography: The New Romantic (2018)