Francine // New Orleans Film Society

Francine

USA 74 min.

Writers, Directors: Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky
Producers: Joshua Blum, Katie Stern
Director Bios: Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky founded Pigeon Projects in 2005 as a means of producing their uncompromising fiction and non-fiction films. Living comfortably at the margins of documentary and narrative cinema, works created by Pigeon Projects forgo conventional storytelling methods in order to accommodate stark imagery, elusive characters and a deadpan realism. Together, Cassidy and Shatzky have shown their films at the Sundance, Toronto, Rotterdam and Edinburgh film festivals. In 2007, Filmmaker Magazine named them as one of "25 New Faces of Independent Film."

Video Clips

Clip: Francine

Synopsis

Academy Award winner Melissa Leo gives a fierce and restrained performance as Francine, a woman struggling to find her place in a downtrodden lakeside town after leaving behind a life in prison. Taking a series of jobs working with animals, Francine turns away others and instead seeks intimacy in the most unlikely of places. Gritty, elliptical, and voyeuristic, Francine is a portrait of a near-silent misfit and her fragile first steps in an unfamiliar world.