Blue Heron (DVD)

A singular coming-of-age story, this revelatory feature debut by Sophy Romvari heralds the arrival of a major new cinematic voice. In the late 1990s, eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven) and her Hungarian Canadian family relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island, but their fresh start is interrupted by the increasingly dangerous behavior of her eldest brother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes). At wit’s end, the parents are presented with a shattering choice. Audaciously layering the past and the present until they converge in a moment of devastating emotional clarity, Blue Heron evokes the languid haze of a childhood summer and the hidden tensions rippling underneath.