Cameras have started rolling on With Love and A Major Organ, Vancouver-based Canadian-British-Filipina director, Kim Albright’s debut feature film. The off-beat comedy screenplay is written by Julia Lederer, whose award-winning stage play of the same name premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival, to overwhelming success and toured across North America to cities including Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
Set in a world where hearts are made of inanimate objects and people suppress emotions to escape into technology, the story shares the travails of a vibrant young woman who rips out her heart for the man she loves, who promptly disappears with it. Offering flairs of magic realism, With Love and a Major Organ promises to stretch our imaginations as it artfully articulates the courage it takes to be true to your own heart.
The film’s stellar cast includes Anna Maguire (Violation, TIFF 2020), as protagonist Anabel, a compassionate ‘fish out of water’ in an emotionally disconnected society, Hamza Haq (NBC / CTV’s Transplant), as George, the kind but mild-mannered man she feels a rare connection to, and much-celebrated veteran actor, Veena Sood (CTV’s Children Ruin Everything) as Mona, George’s over-protective but brilliant mother whose emotion-suppressing techniques have revolutionized the not so distant world from our own, in which the story is set.
“I’m thrilled to be turning this dream into a reality. It’s taken a lot of hard work from a lot of people to get to this point. I’m really excited by the diverse cast and crew that we’ve assembled”, says director Kim Albright. “The support from the entire team, including funders, sponsors and community, has been tremendous.”
WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN | dark comedy / magic realism feature film
In Anabel’s world human hearts are made of inanimate objects. Everyone seems detached from their feelings and addicted to their technological devices. But not Anabel. She feels everything and craves connection. When she meets George, a kind but mild-mannered man, she feels a rare bond with another human being. After a series of painful rejections, plus news of her mother’s death, Anabel vows to forgo the perils of living a life too full of feeling. She rips out her heart and sends it to George. Unable to offer anything in return, George, compelled by Anabel’s heart, disappears on a joy ride while Anabel’s world starts to fade. When George’s over-protective mother, Mona, shows up searching for her son, Anabel learns that without a heart of some kind, Anabel won’t survive. Racing against time to set things right, Mona and Anabel find George and Anabel summons the courage to get her own heart back.