Underplayed Gems

I Used to Live There (2024)

I Used to Live There poster
Directed by
Ryan McKenna
Country
Canada
Runtime
14 min
Elsewhere
IMDb
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The catalogue in 3D

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How it feels

A photographer with a degenerative eye disease is hired by an actress for new headshots. The film blends documentary and fiction to follow their interactions.

observationalintimatemelancholiccontemplativedocumentary-stylesomberunderstatedpersonal

What happens

I Used to Live There is a 2023 Canadian short drama film written, directed, produced, and edited by Ryan McKenna. Blending documentary-style filmmaking with fictional elements, the film stars Daniel Gerson and Monika Schneider as semi-fictionalized versions of themselves, and focuses on the relationship between a photographer who is losing his vision due to a degenerative eye disease and the actress who hired him to take her new headshots. The film premiered at the 76th Locarno Film Festival in August 2023, and had its Canadian premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was named to TIFF's annual Canada's Top Ten list for 2023, and received a Prix Iris nomination for Best Live Action Short Film at the 26th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2024. McKenna previously made another short film about Gerson's struggle with his deteriorating vision, Gerson Workout (2020), for the Greetings from Isolation project. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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