The debut feature documentary of Donegal native Myrid Carten has been selected to world premiere at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) later this month.
Produced by Inland Films, the Irish documentary will screen in International Competition and is eligible for the festival's Best First Feature Award.
IDFA is the world’s biggest documentary festival. Thirteen films "that draw on and transcend deeply personal histories to reflect on our world today" were selected for the festival's International Competition, which was revealed late last month.
Filmmaker Myrid Carten has been filming since she was a child, and when her mother goes missing, she picks up her camera again in response to this new crisis. Her mother Nuala, once a successful social worker, suffered a mental breakdown after the sudden death of her own mother. She shuffles between rehab clinics, psychiatric hospitals, and occasionally the street.
Intimate, surprising, and often darkly funny conversations with her mother and other family members reveal the trials of loving someone who struggles with addiction and madness. Home videos from Myrid’s childhood and recordings of video installations from her current work as an artist form a playful blend of fictional and documentary elements, which compellingly capture the vicious cycle of care and rage.
Atmospheric Irish ballads about vagrant drinkers and dreamlike images of the neglected family home conjure the cultural and relational roots at play. In fresh and inventive ways, the film returns to a familiar, universal question: how can we be with those we love without losing ourselves?
A Want in Her is directed by Myrid Carten and produced by Tadhg O'Sullivan and Roisín Geraghty for Inland Films. Co-producers are Kat Mansoor for Snowstorm Productions and Eline van Wees for Basalt Film. The film is supported by Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, BFI Doc Society, Netherlands Film Fund, and New Dawn Fund.
The 37th edition of IDFA takes place from 14th-24th November.
Click here for more information about the festival.
