FRANCINE

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 relationships and instead seeks intimacy in an ever-growing brood of pets. Gritty, elliptical, and voyeuristic, Francine is a portrait of a near-silent misfit and her fragile first steps in an unfamiliar world.

75 min / Fiction / 2.35

"a small gem of bleak, neorealist portraiture" — The New York Times

"raw, intimate and observed with penetrating acuity" — The Hollywood Reporter

"[Melissa Leo's] performance is absolutely devastating" — New York Magazine

"quietly but forcefully, one of the best films of the year" — Thompson on Hollywood

Written & Directed by Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky

Produced by Joshua Blum & Katie Stern

Cinematographer: Brian M. Cassidy

Cast: Melissa Leo, Keith Leonard, Victoria Charkut, Dave Clark, Mike Halstead

Co-produced with Washington Square Films, and generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and Le Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec.