Never steady never still

LevelK has taken on international sales rights to Kathleen Hepburn’s drama Never Steady, Never Still, which will have its world premiere in Toronto’s Discovery programme. Thunderbird will release in Canada and UK.

Shirley Henderson and Théodore Pellerin star in the story of an 18-year-old oil field worker and his recently widowed mother who is battling advanced Parkinson’s disease. The cast also includes Mary Galloway, Nicholas Campbell and Lorne Cardinal.

Hepburn commented: “The script initially began for me as an attempt to understand, and give voice to, my mother’s own struggle with Parkinson’s over twenty four years ago now, and an urge to explore all that remains unsaid between loved ones - the way we fail in so many ways to express ourselves, not because we don’t want to, but because we simply don’t know how or even what we want to express.”

Vancouver-born Hepburn makes her feature directorial debut with the film, after already making an award-winning short of the same name – it was included in TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten in 2015.

The script for Never Steady, Never Still won best screenplay at the 2014 VancouverInternational Women in Film Festival, and was developed in part through the Canadian Film Centre’s Writer’s Lab. Backers include Telefilm Canada, The Harold Greenberg Fund and the Women in the Director’s Chair Feature Film Award.

Producers are Tyler Hagan for Experimental Forest Films and James Brown for Christie Street Creative. Carol Whiteman and Lori Lozinski are executive producing.

Level K’s autumn festival slate includes is bolstered by three female-directed projects: Never Steady, Never Still, Zaida Bergroth’s Miami, and Annika Berg’s Team Hurricane.