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| Blue Heron | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Sophy Romvari |
| Written by | Sophy Romvari |
| Produced by | Ryan Bobkin Sara Wylie Sophy Romvari Gábor Osváth |
| Starring | Eylul Guven Amy Zimmer Ádám Tompa Iringó Réti |
| Cinematography | Maya Bankovic |
| Edited by | Kurt Walker |
Production companies | Nine Behind Productions Boddah |
Release date |
|
Running time | 90 minutes |
| Countries | Canada Hungary |
| Languages | English Hungarian |
Blue Heron is a Canadian-Hungarian drama film, directed by Sophy Romvari and released in 2025. [1] Based in part on Romvari's own childhood, the film stars Eylul Guven as Sasha, the eight-year-old daughter of a Hungarian immigrant family who relocate to Vancouver Island in the late 1990s while their oldest son Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) displays increasingly dangerous behavioural issues in their new environment. [1]
The cast also includes Ádám Tompa and Iringó Réti as Sasha's parents, Liam Serg and Preston Drabble as Sasha’s brothers, and Amy Zimmer as Adult Sasha.
The film, Romvari's full-length directorial debut, received production funding from both Telefilm Canada [2] and the National Film Institute Hungary, [1] and entered production in 2024. [1]
Blue Heron had its world premiere at the 78th Locarno Film Festival on August 8, 2025, as part of the Concorso Cineasti del Presente competition. [3]
It had its Canadian premiere in the Centrepiece program at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. [4]
The film holds a 100% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 11 critic reviews. [5] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film holds a score of 96/100 based on seven critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [6]
In a review for The Film Stage, Leonardo Gol wrote: "For a director whose projects have always tested the medium’s capacity to conjure and make peace with the specters of one’s past, it feels like the kind of moment Romvari’s been working towards from the start. For a brief, miraculous instant, Sasha’s catharsis is ours too." [7]
For Screen Daily , Nikki Baughan wrote that "Blue Heron blurs the line between fact and fiction in a woozy, laconic way; this is a drama in which perspectives shift, timelines merge and soft-focus sequences are layered with a documentary-style aesthetic. It’s all part of the journey of recollection and discovery for protagonist Sasha – who we see as both a young girl and an adult – and for Romvari, who is using the narrative to unpick her own memories, to get to better grips with her own formative experiences." [8]
| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Locarno Film Festival | August 16, 2025 | Golden Leopard – Filmmakers of the Present | Blue Heron | Nominated | [9] |
| Swatch First Feature Award | Won | [10] | |||
| Toronto International Film Festival | September 14, 2025 | Best Canadian Discovery | Won | [11] | |
| Director's Guild of Canada | 2025 | Jean-Marc Vallée DGC Discovery Award | Longlisted | [12] |
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