Presented by the Film and Digital Media Department.
Date: Mondau, October 6, 2025
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Communications Building, Room 150 (Studio C)
DESCRIPTION: Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), a retired cook, prepares breakfast in her sunny and cozy kitchen — a dish she seems to have made many times before, although small and puzzling errors now punctuate her comfortable routine. When her son (H. Jon Benjamin) arrives to dine with her, she mistakes him for a suitor. Their “date” takes them to an assisted living facility, which Ruth does not remember that she had previously selected for herself. Among her fellow memory care residents, Ruth feels lost and adrift, certain she has found herself somewhere she does not belong. As she slowly begins to accept the warmth and support of care workers Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle) and Brian (Andy McQueen), she finds new ways to ground herself in her body, even as her mind embarks on a journey all its own. Writer-director Sarah Friedland’s coming-of-old-age feature compassionately follows the winding path of octogenarian Ruth’s shifting memories and desires while remaining rooted in her sage perspective.
BIO: SARAH FRIEDLAND is a filmmaker and choreographer working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies. Her work has been presented in festivals and art spaces including the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Mubi, MoMA and the Performa19 Biennial. From 2021 – 2022, she was both a Pina Bausch Fellow for Choreography and a NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Film/Video, and was named to Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2023. Her short film trilogy, MOVEMENT EXERCISES, is distributed by Video Data Bank. Sarah has been working in creative aging for the last eight years, as a caregiver to artists with dementia, and as a teaching artist facilitating intergenerational films and workshops for older adults. FAMILIAR TOUCH is her debut feature film.
WORKSHOP: Found Movement: Choreographing Methods in Experimental Filmmaking Workshop
Tuesday, October 7, 3:20pm-6:20pm, SocDoc Lab Seminar Room
This workshop will focus on methods of scripting, staging, and modulating“found movement” for experimental and hybrid filmmaking. We will investigate different strategies for creating films choreographically, opening up methods such as embodied interviewing, re-enactment, and experimental scriptwriting, including use of performance scores, dance notation, and shotlists. We will consider the bounds of the choreographic in the composition of moving image works, questioning how “real” movement can be written, scripted, improvised, staged, modulated, documented, and edited. The workshop will lead students through a number of group and solo exercises in playing with the relationship between choreography, embodied memory, and scriptwriting. RSVP to ilusztig@ucsc.edu to join.