The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open has won the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, an honour that comes with a $100,000 prize. Let’s spotlight this drama co-directed and co-written by Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.
Looking back on the film’s journey, after premiering at the 2019 Berlinale, it’s earned the Grand Prix Focus Quebec/Canada at the Festival du nouveau cinéma; an honourable mention for Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival; and was chosen for TIFF’s Canada’s Top 10.
Festival presence aside, this Canada-Norway coproduction is reaching the hearts of audiences worldwide, and it was named a Critic’s Pick by the New York Times, not to mention scooping up a deal with Ava DuVernay’s collective ARRAY Releasing.
Story and themes
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open was inspired by a true experience of Tailfeathers’ when she met a young woman in East Vancouver some years ago. As she explains in the video interview below, the film honours that woman’s story.
The story begins when two Indigenous women from different backgrounds meet on the street after an assault. More deeply, as Hepburn says in the video: