World Premiere
“I don’t think I’m doing very well,” Ruth Mackie (Marlene Jewell) tells her doctor during a cognitive exam. An elderly Nova Scotian woman struggling with dementia, Ruth likes feeding pigeons and playing TV bingo. She believes that her home is infested with bugs and that they live inside her, too. Ruth’s pregnant young caretaker, Shannon (Katie Mattattal) is grappling with her abandonment by the baby’s father, a race-car driver. As Ruth’s cognition deteriorates, these two women overlooked by society leave an indelible impression on each other.
Winner of the Emerging Canadian Director Award for Murmur at VIFF 2019, writer/director Heather Young once again brings exceptional nuance to themes of loneliness and isolation. A realist drama with contemplative pacing, There, There deploys formal restraint through its static shots and naturalistic dialogue to deliver a bittersweet portrayal of the universal need for companionship. With a tender performance by Katie Mattattal, Young’s sophomore feature endears us to the unsung caregivers who bring an essential human touch to the lives of others.
Sept 29 & 30: Q&A with director Heather Young and producer Martha Cooley
Presented by
Media Partner
Marlene Jewell, Katie Mattatall
Canada
2024
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Britt Kerr, Martha Cooley, Heather Young
Screenwriter
Heather Young
Cinematography
Catherine Lutes
Editor
Heather Young
Production Design
Michael Pierson
Heather Young
Heather Young is a filmmaker based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She made the short films Howard and Jean (2014), Fish (2016), and Milk (2017). Her first feature, Murmur (2019), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival where it won the FIPRESCI Prize for the Discovery Programme and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance Film Festival. There, There is her second feature.
Filmography: Murmur (2019)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Everyone Is Lying to You for Money
In which former OC star Ben McKenzie brushes off his economics degree and digs into the cryptocurrency conundrum. If bitcoin is truly all about transparency, how come no one can explain it?
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
This intimate and candid film by a younger husband and wife artist team is a delicate and immensely moving dual portrait of two artists, husband and wife, together and apart, at that point in life when the end casts a shadow over even the sunniest day.
Image: © Manon et Jacob and Final Cut For Real
Do You Love Me
Lana Daher's bravura and defiant non-fiction film is a cultural-historical self-portrait of Beirut, comprised entirely of film clips (many of them from dramatic features, but also from news reports, TV and home video) culled from the last 70 years.
Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story
Judging by this candid, funny, passionate biographical documentary, it would have been a wild ride to have been Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, or even to have been in her circle of friends and lovers. Well, for an hour and a half we can pretend we were.
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.
