Press Release
Maggie & Merly
For Immediate Release
Toronto, Canada
November 20, 2017
Maggie & Merly
Asian Premiere
Singapore Independent Film Festival
January 12 to 13, 2018
Toronto, Canada
November 20, 2017
Maggie & Merly
Asian Premiere
Singapore Independent Film Festival
January 12 to 13, 2018
What Happens When Fate Brings Together
Two Women Raised on Opposite Sides of the Planet?
Two Women Raised on Opposite Sides of the Planet?
Karen Shenfeld’s personal documentary Maggie & Merly (54 minutes) presents a portrait of the intimate relationship between a Canadian widow (the filmmaker’s mother) and her live-in Filipino caregiver.
Maggie & Merly will celebrate its Asian Premiere at the Singapore Independent Film Festival, which is set to take place on January 12th to 13th, 2018. In its second year, the Festival’s mission is to bridge cultural understanding and encourage artistic development by bringing the best of world cinema to Singapore.
Film Director Karen Shenfeld has located her documentary, Maggie & Merly, mainly within the restricted confines of Maggie's condominium apartment in Toronto, Canada. Over the course of five years of filming, Maggie (who passed away the July before last) struggles with the onset of Parkinson's Disease and the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury. Meanwhile, Merly, her caregiver, strives to cope with loneliness and the long hours of her job, while sending all of her earnings back home to the Philippines to support her own elderly parents.
Shenfeld structures her film like a ballad, using recurring scenes, to uncover the poignant in the banal, the tender in the harsh. The film also possesses much unexpected humour, revealing the bright personalities and eccentricities of its subjects. Over the course of the film, Merly applies for and attains her Canadian Permanent Resident Status, while Maggie suffers a further degradation of her health. Shenfeld focuses her lens on the caring and the cared for, showing how the lives of both can be enriched by the redemptive power of love.
The story of Maggie & Merly is just one of thousands of stories, some heartening, some painful, being enacted across Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere, as Filipino women care for the young, elderly and disabled. The Philippines is the world’s largest exporter of labour. Roughly 10 per cent of the Philippines’ population, approximately 10 million people, live and work overseas. Many family households across the world would not run smoothly if not for the tireless help given by Filipino employees.
Karen Shenfeld is a published poet as well as a filmmaker. She is interested in telling quiet, evocative stories that have international significance. Her previous film, Il Giardino, The Gardens of Little Italy, screened at the 2007 Toronto Italian Film Festival and Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival. She is currently writing a screenplay for a feature film that has been optioned by the Canadian director, Bruce McDonald.
Maggie & Merly had its Canadian premiere in July of 2017 at Toronto’s ReelHeART International Film and Screenplay Festival. The film won Third Prize for the Best Short Documentary, and Shenfeld won the festival’s Spirit Award.
View the trailer for Maggie & Merly.
-30-
Media contact for interviews/photo-op or more info; that PR thing:
Danielle Iversen, Publicist, 1.416.923.6566 or d@thatPRthing.com
Maggie & Merly will celebrate its Asian Premiere at the Singapore Independent Film Festival, which is set to take place on January 12th to 13th, 2018. In its second year, the Festival’s mission is to bridge cultural understanding and encourage artistic development by bringing the best of world cinema to Singapore.
Film Director Karen Shenfeld has located her documentary, Maggie & Merly, mainly within the restricted confines of Maggie's condominium apartment in Toronto, Canada. Over the course of five years of filming, Maggie (who passed away the July before last) struggles with the onset of Parkinson's Disease and the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury. Meanwhile, Merly, her caregiver, strives to cope with loneliness and the long hours of her job, while sending all of her earnings back home to the Philippines to support her own elderly parents.
Shenfeld structures her film like a ballad, using recurring scenes, to uncover the poignant in the banal, the tender in the harsh. The film also possesses much unexpected humour, revealing the bright personalities and eccentricities of its subjects. Over the course of the film, Merly applies for and attains her Canadian Permanent Resident Status, while Maggie suffers a further degradation of her health. Shenfeld focuses her lens on the caring and the cared for, showing how the lives of both can be enriched by the redemptive power of love.
The story of Maggie & Merly is just one of thousands of stories, some heartening, some painful, being enacted across Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere, as Filipino women care for the young, elderly and disabled. The Philippines is the world’s largest exporter of labour. Roughly 10 per cent of the Philippines’ population, approximately 10 million people, live and work overseas. Many family households across the world would not run smoothly if not for the tireless help given by Filipino employees.
Karen Shenfeld is a published poet as well as a filmmaker. She is interested in telling quiet, evocative stories that have international significance. Her previous film, Il Giardino, The Gardens of Little Italy, screened at the 2007 Toronto Italian Film Festival and Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival. She is currently writing a screenplay for a feature film that has been optioned by the Canadian director, Bruce McDonald.
Maggie & Merly had its Canadian premiere in July of 2017 at Toronto’s ReelHeART International Film and Screenplay Festival. The film won Third Prize for the Best Short Documentary, and Shenfeld won the festival’s Spirit Award.
View the trailer for Maggie & Merly.
-30-
Media contact for interviews/photo-op or more info; that PR thing:
Danielle Iversen, Publicist, 1.416.923.6566 or d@thatPRthing.com