June 20th at 7:30pm
Main Hall
Will (Ben Foster) and his teenage daughter, Tom (Thomasin Harcourt
McKenzie), have lived off the grid for years in the forests of Portland,
Oregon. When their idyllic life is shattered, both are put into social
services. After clashing with their new surroundings, Will and Tom set
off on a harrowing journey back to their wild homeland. The film is
directed by Debra Granik from a script adapted by Granik and Anne
Rosellini.
About Debra Granik
Debra Granik started working in film and video in the Boston
grassroots media movement in the late 80’s. She studied politics at
Brandeis University and her first forays into operating a camera and
collaborating on political documentation were with Boston based media
groups such as the Women’s Video Collective. While in Boston she had the
good fortune to be able to take classes at Mass College of Art, Studio
for Interrelated Media, which exposed her to a great variety of film
work and traditions. Granik shot and produced educational programs
related to workplace health and safety issues for local trade unions and
for the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Safety. After clocking
considerable time in world of educational media production, she had the
chance to work on several long form documentaries by Boston based
filmmakers. From there, she moved to NYC to attend New York University’s
Graduate Film Program, seeking a way to inter-relate her interest in
real-life experience and story structure, which she found in the film
tradition of neo-realism, through a mentor at NYU.
At NYU, she made several short films, one of which, Snake Feed,
garnered an award at Sundance, which led to involvement in the Sundance
Screenwriting and Directing Labs. She expanded the story from Snake Feed into a longer script which formed the basis for the feature Down to the Bone, created with her producing partner, Anne Rosellini. Down to the Bone, was awarded the Best Director prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Her next film, Winter’s Bone,
was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, and won the
Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Granik and
co-writer Anne Rosellini were Oscar nominated for Best Adapted
Screenplay. Her most recent film, Stray Dog, created with Tory
Stewart is a feature length documentary. Going forward, she hopes to be
proceeding on both the narrative fiction and documentary tracks,
including forays onto the third rail when the two tracks seem to
converge.