BLUE HERON

Sophy Romvari's narrative feature debut, expanding on the autobiographical territory of her acclaimed shorts, is a quietly devastating piece of work. Set in the late 1990s, it follows eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family as they settle into a new home on Vancouver Island, hoping for a fresh start. That hope frays as her older brother Jeremy's behavior grows more erratic and dangerous, pushing their parents toward a choice no family should have to make. Told largely through Sasha's eyes, the film moves with the hazy, half-understood logic of childhood memory, more interested in what a family carries forward than in resolving what went wrong.

Winner of the Swatch First Feature Award and Junior Jury Award at Locarno, and the Best Canadian Discovery prize at TIFF, BLUE HERON announces Romvari as a major new voice: a filmmaker willing to sit inside grief and confusion without rushing toward easy answers, and to trust her audience to sit there with her.