Kingfisher Award Winner:
Blue Heron

Screening of the winning film
Directed by: Sophy Romvari
Canada, Hungary, 2025, 90'

Cankarjev dom Cinema Blue Heron

Screenplay: Sophy Romvari
Cinematography: Maya Bankovic
Cast: Eylul Guven, Iringó Réti , Ádám Tompa, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer, Liam Serg, Preston Drabble, Lucy Turnbull
Producent: Nine Behind Productions & Boddah

The Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker builds on her celebrated short work in a complex, sure-handed drama that deftly weaves documentary elements into a raw fictionalization of her own childhood.

In the late 1990s, a Hungarian family of six settles into their new home on Vancouver Island. The internal dynamics of the household are slowly revealed through the experiences of the youngest child, Sasha. Already self-conscious that their immigrant status makes them stand out in a small suburban community, their wish to conform is further complicated by Jeremy, the mother's teenage son from a previous relationship. Aloof and taciturn, his behaviour slides from erratic to antisocial, even criminal. While her mother is trying to protect them from social embarrassment, Sasha sees no shame in her brother's strangeness.

Part of my impetus to make films is to try to gain control over something that is uncontrollable-memories, grief, death. I use filmmaking to create another reality, or as a tool for acceptance of what I can't control. For me, Blue Heron is an attempt to acknowledge, but then eventually accept, an inability to go back in time, literally, or change something.
Sophy Romvari

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