Varsity 2 Friday, April 13, 2018 - 6:20 PM

Back at the Staircase

Narrative Feature

77 minutes

2018

Director(s): Drew Britton

USA

Synopsis

Oregon Premiere

What if you had a holiday get together with your extended family? Only it wasn’t a holiday. It was a spontaneous vigil for Barbara, your mother/aunt, who has been hospitalized after a nasty fall down the stairs. Her two daughters—Margaret and Trish, and two nephews—Philip and Ian, and Ian’s girlfriend, Jody, spend an awkward day at the family cabin in the woods, not coming to terms with their personal and family issues. An excellent cast propels the stress and drama to a heightened level that seems all too believable. Barbara may survive, but the siblings and cousins are unraveling.

Director’s Statement

Back at the Staircase was created with the utmost importance placed on performance and story. To successfully execute such matters required an intense and deep examination of the characters and their behavior. The quarrels we have regarding love, sentiment, relationships, and destructive behavior are concepts dealt with by every individual. We are consistently faced with opposing viewpoints of one another and people’s inability to communicate. The film is a direct representation of this experience and an examination into the various ways people deal with it. My aspiration as a director is to create work that allows for reflection on decisions and relationships within a viewer’s own life. The presence of this communication in my work is what evokes empathy and supports its relevance.