Back Home

Runtime: 110'

Expected release: September, 2022

Production stage: Post Production

Budget: $249,347 (100% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: US and International distributors, sales agents, and film festivals with a track record of working with creative experimental documentaries.

Synopsis:

Back Home follows a sister’s pursuit to get to know her older brother, 20 years after he took his own life. Through intimate recollections re-imagined on 16mm and Super8, and handmade visuals, she connects with the friends who knew him best – his chosen family. Floating between memory and present time, Back Home is a fragmented meditation on the transformative power of grieving in community.

Director’s profile:

Nisha Platzer is a queer artist and filmmaker from Vancouver. Her films meld sounds and imagery that you can dream and drown in. Her last short film, Vaivén (2020) won the best film award at aluCine Latin Film & Media Arts Festival and competed at festivals worldwide including Raindance, Festival Nouveau Cinema, FIDBA and Ji.hlava IDFF. Nisha studied at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión in Cuba. Her work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council and the National Film Board of Canada. She teaches handmade film workshops and is a member of Iris Film Collective. An alumnus of IDFAcademy, the VIFF mentorship program, and the Hot Docs Doc Accelerator Lab, her work can be found in music videos, narrative and experimental films. Currently, she is in post production on her first feature documentary, Back Home, supported by Telefilm Talent to Watch.

Producers’s profile:

Joella Cabalu is a Filipino Canadian documentary filmmaker based in Vancouver. Her films lay bare narratives about intimacies, identities, and relationships. Her first mid-length documentary, It Runs in the Family (2015) — a personal exploration of acceptance and what the modern queer family can be in the Filipino diaspora — won the Audience Choice Award at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival and a special jury mention at CAAMFest for the Loni Ding Award for Social Justice Documentary. Joella has worked as a producer alongside women directors to realize critically acclaimed short documentaries, including Born Identities (TIFF 2021), On Falling (Tribeca 2020), Biker Bob’s Posthumous Adventure (MDFF 2019), Do I Have Boobs Now? (Slamdance 2017), and FIXED! (DOXA 2017). She is producing her first feature documentary Back Home with support from the Telefilm Talent to Watch fund.