Familiar Touch
A sensitive and humorous coming-of-old-age film in which Ruth, in her eighties, has to adapt to a new life in a nursing home while her memory is failing. Winner of three awards at the Venice Film Festival.
Ruth Goldman, an aging widow and retired professional cook, suffers from dementia. No longer able to recognize her loved ones, she is checked into an assisted living facility by her reluctant, conflicted son, and thus begins a rocky, uncertain transition into the next chapter of her twilight years. As Ruth’s unreliable memory ebbs and flows, she wrestles with where she is and how she got there.
Having previously worked in aged care, Friedland forged an extraordinary collaboration with Villa Gardens, a real-life Pasadena retirement home, whose residents both appear on camera and were involved behind it.
Familiar Touch had its world premiere in the Orrizonti section of the Venice Film Festival, and won three awards, including the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Best Debut Film.