Film Screening: “Connectivity: Familiar Touch”

Familiar Touch, the debut feature from writer-director Sarah Friedland, is a sensitive coming-of-old-age film inspired by her experiences as a caregiver, choreographer, and dance-filmmaker. The story follows Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), a retired homemaker and cook, as she transitions into an assisted living facility she had once chosen for herself, but no longer remembers. As the film chronicles Ruth’s adjustment to her new surroundings with the support of care workers Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle Smith) and Brian (Andy McQueen), Familiar Touch explores aging not as a loss of self, but as a continued unfolding of identity, memory, and desire. Shot almost entirely on location at Pasadena’s Villa Gardens retirement community, the film features real residents as both cast and crew, weaving authenticity into its choreography of quotidian life and care. With a dancer’s eye for movement and intimacy, Friedland crafts a deeply empathetic portrait that resists ageist tropes and centers octogenarian Ruth’s own ever-evolving perspective.

Filmmaker Sarah Friedland will join moderator Bhaskar Sarkar (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) for a post-screening discussion of Familiar Touch.