Brother

Director Joanna Rudnick (2021 JFI Filmmaker in Residence) expected to attend

Over the course of a year, filmmaker Joanna Rudnick records her phone conversations with her brother Matt in recovery from heroin addiction. What results is a raw exploration of a downward spiral from pills to heroin and the precipitating events that take him further away from her and their family. In the process of making this film together, Matt dies of an overdose from fentanyl intoxication during the pandemic. Left with the recording of his voice, she turns their conversation into an experimental, animated narrative that imagines his past trauma and a future where he is free from pain. Actor Lance Barber (Young Sheldon CBS) plays Joanna’s brother Matt and Joanna plays herself in a rotoscoped performance that crosses between past and present, fantasy and reality, documentary and narrative, and the boundaries that pull families apart.

Plays with Do I Need This?