After gaining critical success for 2019’s ‘Anne at 13,000 Ft.’, Canadian director Kazik Radswanski returns with his low-budget filmmaking style on his fourth feature film, ‘Matt and Mara’. The mumblecore-adjacent film stars Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson in its titular roles, both a longtime collaborator of Radswanski in a road trip story about a woman in a strained marriage and a free-spirited writer from her past.
‘Matt and Mara’ premiered this year at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival and is scheduled to have its Canadian premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
Starring in the film are Deragh Campbell, Matt Johnson, Mounir Al Shami, Simon Reynolds, Kinshuk Dhingra, Georgia Tannis, Jack Nguyen, Frances Howlett, and Linda Theresa Young.
Release Date
Directed by Kazik Radwanski, ‘Matt and Mara’ opens in theaters on September 13, 2024.
Synopsis
A chance encounter leads Mara (Deragh Campbell), a young creative writing professor, to reunite with Matt (Matt Johnson), a charismatic, free-spirited author from her past who wanders onto her university campus. Bonded by their shared interests, the two begin to grow closer as she contends with her strained marriage to an experimental musician. When her husband suddenly cancels plans to drive Mara to a conference out of town, Matt accompanies her on the road trip, where pressure slowly mounts against their undefined relationship.
“There was no formal dialogue or scripted dialogue. All the dialogue you hear is improvised and in one way or another.” Said director Kazik Radwanski about the improvisation nature of the film in an interview with Euronews. Lead actor Matt Johnson continues Radwanski’s statement, “But that’s not to say that Kaz wouldn’t come in between takes and say “I liked it when you took a conversation here.” We had private conversations – we would never talk openly, the three of us. He would talk to Deragh privately, he talked to me privately, and he would often zero in on things that I’d say and tell me: “Say that again.” So we would play the scene again and I would make sure to either get to that same line of dialogue, or find a new way to introduce this idea. It was directed improv.”
Reviews
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in an AWFJ.org review praised the film, writing, “This is a careful, considered and considerate film, an authentic portrait of two people at a transformative moment full of all the life and humour and contradictions shared by us all.”
Wendy Ide in a Screen International review also praised the film, writing, “Matt and Mara is one of those films in which very little concrete happens, but the tingling possibility that something might makes it compelling.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for ‘Matt and Mara’.