NFB Feature ‘Window Horses’ Sets US Premiere for Santa Barbara

Vancouver-based filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming’s acclaimed film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming (from Stickgirl Productions and the National Film Board of Canada) will celebrate its US premiere on Thursday, February 2 with at Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Window Horses will screen at Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre on Feb. 2 at 2 p.m., and at the Metro 1 Cinema on Feb. 4 at 8 a.m. Lead voice actor and executive producer Sandra Oh will be in attendance.

The film centers on a young Canadian poet named Rosie Ming who is invited to perform at a festival in Iran — though she’d rather go to Paris. Living with her over-protective Chinese grandparents, she has never traveled by herself. Once in Iran, the stories told by the poets and Persians she meets force her to confront her past as she learns more about the Iranian father she had assumed abandoned her, and the nature of poetry.

Golden Globe winner Oh Rosie, with Ellen Page as her best friend, Kelly; as well as Don McKellar, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Nancy Kwan. The film also boasts a notable animator roster, with Kevin Langdale, Janet Perlman, Bahram Javaheri and Jody Kramer among the dozen-plus who worked alongside Fleming.

Since its world premiere in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Window Horses has won top prizes including the Jury Prize at Bucheon International Animation Festival, Best Animated Film at Gijón International Film Festival and the Audience Prize at Greece’s Animasyros International Animation Festival. In Canada, it’s received the Best B.C. Film and Best Canadian Film awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival and the Centennial Best Canadian Film or Video Award at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.

Window Horses is co-produced by Stickgirl Productions (Ann Marie Fleming) and the NFB (Shirley Vercruysse and Michael Fukushima). NFB is the international distributor.