Marion Bridge

Colour
Canada, 2002, 90 min
Section: Horizons
Oficiální stránky: www.siennafilms.com

Synopsis

The attractive Agnes receives crushing news at her home in Toronto – her mother Rose is gravely ill. So Agnes decides to return to her native small town Sydney. There she encounters her older sister Theresa, an intolerant bigoted Catholic, who has been abandoned by her husband for a younger woman, and Louise who has shut herself off in her own world in which no emotions exist, only the television whose channels she flicks through. Agnes’ return home awakens all sorts of forgotten demons from the past. Why does she travel to a nearby village to see the fifteen-year-old Joanie? What attracts the young woman to the girl? And what happened to the sisters’ father? Their mother’s health deteriorates and the three women realise that the period of their common existence is fast coming to an end. But there are still so many things which remained unanswered. The question remains: are they to make any sound at all in the artificial silence they created so long ago?

About the director

Wiebke von Carolsfeld was born and studied in Germany. She then left for Canada where she worked as a film editor on films by Tim Southam (The Bay of Love and Sorrows), Jeremy Podeswa (The Five Senses, After the Harvest), Renny Bartlett (Eisenstein – nominated for a Genie award), Daniel MacIvor (Permission, Until I Hear from You) and many others. She enjoyed great success with her two shorts From Morning On I Waited Yesterday and Spiral Bound, which were screened at festivals in Canada, the USA and Europe, and which were awarded several prizes. Last year she worked as assistant director on Atom Egoyan’s feature Ararat. This intimate family drama depicting the fragility of family ties is her first feature film.