Award-Winning Film Familiar Touch by Sarah Friedland '14 Followed by Q&A with Filmmaker and Star

WINNER OF 3 MAJOR AWARDS AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

The Brown Club in NY and Brown Media Group are thrilled to invite you to this special screening of Familiar Touch, the debut film of writer and director Sarah Friedland '14, followed by a Q&A with Sarah and the film's star, Tony nominee Kathleen Chalfant G'23.5.

A coming of (old) age film, Familiar Touch follows an octogenarian woman (acclaimed stage actor, Kathleen Chalfant) as she navigates the transition to life in assisted living and the ways that her cognitive decline affects her relationship to herself, her son and her caregivers.

Familiar Touch earned three awards in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition (the most in the history of the section!), including the Lion of the Future (Best Debut), Best Director, and Best Actress for Kathleen Chalfant.

Sarah Friedland '14 is a filmmaker and choreographer working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies. Her work has been presented in festivals and art spaces including the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Mubi, MoMA and the Performa19 Biennial. Sarah graduated from Brown University’s department of Modern Culture and Media and started her career assisting filmmakers including Steve McQueen, Mike S. Ryan, and Kelly Reichardt. From 2021 - 2022, she was both a Pina Bausch Fellow for Choreography and a NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Film/Video, and was named to Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2023. Her short film trilogy, Movement Exercises, is distributed by Video Data Bank. Sarah has been working in creative aging for the last eight years, as a caregiver to artists with dementia, and as a teaching artist facilitating intergenerational films and workshops for older adults. FAMILIAR TOUCH is her debut feature film.

Kathleen Chalfant G'23.5 has spent more than five decades performing on stage, screen, and TV. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Vivian Bearing in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, for which she received Obie, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, and Ovation awards. Other critically acclaimed roles include Hannah Pitt/Ethel Rosenberg in the original cast of Tony Kushner’s groundbreaking Angels in America, receiving nominations for both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards. Notable film credits include KINSEY, DUPLICITY, and THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, among many others. Her beloved TV characters include playing Margaret Butler on Showtime’s The Affair, as well as roles in House of Cards, The Americans, Madame Secretary, Elementary, High Maintenance, and all the various Law and Orders. Kathleen has collaborated with acclaimed experimental filmmakers and choreographers, including Yvonne Rainer, Barbara Hammer, and Pam Tanowitz.

Questions? Email: patti.galluzzi@brownnyc.org