To The Stars

Showings

Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema Fri, Sep 27, 2019 7:00 PM

Description

2018 | USA | 111 min

In a god-fearing small town in 1960s Oklahoma, bespectacled and reclusive teen Iris endures the booze-induced antics of her mother and daily doses of bullying from her classmates. She finds solace in Maggie, the charismatic and enigmatic new girl at school, who hones in on Iris’s untapped potential and coaxes her out of her shell. When Maggie’s mysterious past can no longer be suppressed, the tiny community is thrown into a state of panic, leaving Maggie to take potentially drastic measures and inciting Iris to stand up for her friend and herself.

Martha Stephens (co-director of Land Ho!, 2014 Sundance Film
Festival) directs this period piece with flair, utilizing classic
black-and-white landscape cinematography to create an aesthetic
feast. On one level, this is Iris’s coming-of-age tale, a story about
finding power and comfort in one’s own skin. Yet Stephens also
infuses the film with elements of the western genre to tell a deeper
story, about women as outsiders in a time and place of repression
and intolerance.

Director: Martha Stephens
Screenwriter: Shannon Bradley-Colleary

With Skype or in-person Q&A with director

9pm After Party at Bluegrass Kitchen with portion of proceeds going to AQFF