COYOTE GIRL / Southern Premiere

Huddled in a windswept farmhouse, Riley Ann cares for dementia-ridden dad. He slips away. She falters. Playing his endgame saves her. Magical thinking prevails.

Director Statement:

Winter on the prairie is a palette of grays, as light and shadow play across the fields, a moving picture more poetry than story. Life there leans into the wind, head down, step by plodding step. Until one grows old, looks up, and finds the house empty, save for the memories squabbling there. Add dementia to the room, and the piercing cry of a coyote can enthrall, dislodging common sense and self-control. And there stands the caregiver, leaning into the wind. Nurse, chief cook, and bottle-washer—barely holding on to self, let alone the loved one slipping away. This movie is a poem about that moment, brief, timeless, magical, a dance of shadow, light, words and music. Like Coyote, it has a trickster’s heart and a forgiving nature, both gifts of the prairie.