Blue Heron
A filmmaker sifts through old videos and memories in this emotionally devastating coming-of-age marvel, a multiple award winner at Locarno and Toronto.
Eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven) is growing up surrounded by brothers, one of a sprawling Hungarian immigrant family on Vancouver Island in the 1990s. The big family’s attention is captured by troubled elder brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), whose rebellious behaviour seems like a cry for help. Years later, now a filmmaker, Sasha (Amy Zimmer) combs through old home videos and bittersweet memories, trying to make sense of her formative years.
Earning comparisons to Charlotte Wells’s beloved Aftersun (MIFF 2022), Blue Heron won the Swatch First Feature Award upon its premiere at Locarno and was crowned Best Canadian Discovery at TIFF. Sophy Romvari has directed a number of celebrated shorts including 2020’s Still Processing, effectively an autobiographical companion to Blue Heron; her hugely impressive, affecting debut feature further confirms her as a major emerging voice in cinema.
“Signals the arrival of a bold new filmmaking voice … Blue Heron demonstrates the full potential of the cinematic form to not just move us emotionally, but rewire our understanding of how it is that we tell stories on screen.” – The Wrap
Writer/director Sophy Romvari is a guest of the festival and will be in attendance at the Saturday 15 August, Tuesday 18 August and Thursday 20 August sessions of the film.
Sophy Romvari will also appear at the MIFF Talks event The Screen Show: MIFF’s Bright Horizons Filmmakers on Saturday 22 August.
Tickets
For information about the accessible services being offered at MIFF, please visit miff.com.au/access. If you require any access service, such as wheelchair/step-free access, for any MIFF session, please call 03 8660 4888 or email boxoffice@miff.com.au to book your ticket.
You might also like ...
A heartbreaking portrait of innocence lost, this acclaimed Sundance award winner and surefire Oscar contender is one of the most essential films of 2026.
Set in a coastal New Zealand town over the summer of 2006, this queer coming-of-age story – executive-produced by Jane Campion – is a bittersweet slice of pre-smartphone-era teendom.
In this gorgeous, multiple award-winning tale, a young woman comes of age and searches for her identity in the era of China’s one-child policy.
In Paweł Pawlikowski’s third post-WWII meditation, exiled author Thomas Mann tours a devastated Germany whose divisions echo his own fractured family.
A unique mixture of different forms of Indigenous storytelling, this vibrant documentary finds the humanity behind all-too-familiar statistics.
When a lost little boy is found, his father is sceptical that it’s really him. But don’t be fooled – this mind-bender isn’t really about changelings or revenants.
Javier Bardem enthrals as a legendary director with ambiguous intentions who casts his estranged daughter in an upcoming film.
A play-it-loud trip through 70 years of Lebanese history.