Scene from the film The Patron Saints
Scene from the film The Patron Saints
Scene from the film The Patron Saints

The Patron Saints

Direction
Year 
2011
Country
  • Canada
Duration
72min 
Audio Tracks 

The film has screened at the Toronto film festival (TIFF) and Rotterdam film festival.

Bold and unremitting in its depiction of the elderly, The Patron Saints eschews our hyper-individualistic culture obsessed with youth. Taking a head-on approach, husband-and-wife duo Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky peer with fly-on-the-wall access into the beige, featureless corridors of a nursing home, presenting an uneasy yet impactful 'portrait of fading bodies and minds.' Forgoing conventional documentary modes for a poetic treatment of the aging, the residents here, shot over the course of five years, are captured with a disconcerting deadpan realism—candid depictions not unlike Larry Clark’s bruising sexually active teenagers in Kids(1995). Jim, the youngest resident, a paralyzed man who has been in and out of institutions his entire life, is our humble, wisecracking narrator and guide. A startling wake-up call that takes up permanent residence in the mind, The Patron Saints unearths a rare beauty in the bleakest of places. — Justin Mah

Details

  • Original title
    The Patron Saints
  • Direction
  • Screenplay
    Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky
  • DOP
    Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky
  • Editing
    Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky, Lance Edmands
  • Sound
    Nicholas Sjostrom
  • Duration
    72 min (46-90 min.)
  • Year
    2011
  • Country
    • Canada
  • Colour
    • Colour
  • Production
  • Distribution
  • Festivals
    • Toronto International Film Festival
    • International FIlm Festival Rotterdam
    • RIDM (Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal)
    • Planete Doc Film Festival
    • BAMcinemaFest
    • DOXA
    • Cork Film Festival
    • Nashville Film Festival
    • Maryland Film Festival
    • Sarasota Film Festival
    • Rooftop Films
    • Play-Doc
    • FIDBA
    • MiradasDoc
  • Awards
    • RIDM (Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal), Planete Doc Film Festival

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