EXCLUSIVE: Liz Sargent’s drama Take Me Home, which won the U.S. Dramatic Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, at Sundance is screening is also an acquisitions title at the Berlinale. The pic is being sold by Gersh.
The film follows Anna, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a cognitive disability, who is played by the director’s sister. In the movie, Anna cares for her aging parents. Her devoted father is succumbing to dementia. A Florida heat wave hits and shatters the family’s routine, making their future uncertain.
Sargent’s feature an expansion of her 2023 Sundance short. Take Me Home is an expose on the indignities of the American health care system and the structural challenges faced by disabled people.
Sargent tells Deadline this morning about the above clip in which Anna and her sister Emily (Ali Ahn) defy their odds at a grocery store:
“Growing up as the middle child of eleven, seven of whom are adopted and several with disabilities, has shaped the way I see the world. I identify most as a glass child, a sibling who feels extreme love, protection, and fear for their loved one.
The making this movie is all about Anna, my sister, who plays a version of herself, filmed in the home she lived in with our aging parents. Sisters are complicated and annoying and best friends. I love this scene because Emily (Ali Ahn) and Anna (Anna Sargent) capture all that love. Keeping Anna exactly as she is, we see her take back her power, ignore the system, and show Emily who’s boss. Her awesomeness is the heart of this film and these lives.
Take Me Home captures a very specific moment right now in America: the quiet, invisible families without resources to care for the people they love. We build empathy by centering and normalizing Anna’s experience and ask the viewer to imagine a future where we can all live our best lives. But it’s a universal story calling to action to create a world where we all get what we deserve – good food, fresh air, community, and self-agency—is that too much to ask?”
