Familiar Touch

One of the highlights of this year’s Venice Film Festival, Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch won three top awards in the Horizons section - Best Debut, Best Director, and Best Actress for Kathleen Chalfant as Ruth. Familiar Touch is a refreshing, funny and very moving coming of (old) age film about octogenarian Ruth and her transition to life in assisted living as she contends with her conflicting relationship to herself and her caregivers amidst her shifting memory, age identity, and desires. Ruth disavows not only the roles expected of her - Mother, Patient, Old Lady - but also her ‘appropriate’ age identity, sliding between feeling 85 and 25.