Professor Virginia Heath’s ‘Lift Share’ in Official Competition – 16th KIN International Women’s Film Festival, in Armenia 11-15 November 2019

Professor Virginia Heath‘s award-winning short film Lift Share will screen in Official Competition at the 16th KIN Women’s International Film Festival in Armenia between Monday 11 and Friday 15 November 2019.

The festival’s goal is to promote women’s creativity, establish a network between woman filmmakers from different parts of the world and give a better understanding of different cultures and each other.

Find the full programme here and more event information on Facebook.

In Lift Share, two strangers meet through an online lift share website: a young Romanian woman in desperate search of a child that was forcibly taken from her and a Scottish musician returning to the Isle of Harris to face up to the death of his violent, estranged father.  As they drive through the Scottish Highlands, the film moves between present and future time frames as each character imagines what they might do when they reach the Outer Hebrides.  Alone with their fears, the haunting beauty of the remote Islands helps them find escape from their past pain. The comfort that only strangers can bring enables them to share a moment of hope for the future.

The film was made with support from Creative Scotland, BFI.NETWORK, Scottish Film Talent Network, An Comhairle (Western Isles Council), Faction North, Kolik Films and the Art & Design Research Centre (ADRC) at Sheffield Hallam University.

Professor Virginia Heath is a Professor of Film in the Art and Design Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, and is a writer, film-maker and researcher. Virginia teaches on Sheffield Hallam’s MA in Filmmaking. Virginia has written and directed several award winning films and her films are screened at international film festivals including Berlin, Cannes, The Hamptons, New York, Vancouver, St Petersburg. Virginia’s projects include My Dangerous Loverboy (2009)  a powerful multi-platform project addressing human-trafficking and sexual-exploitation which formed the basis of an outstanding Impact Case Study  for Unit of Assessment 34: Art & Design (History, Theory & Practice) in REF2014, and From Scotland with Love (2014) a feature-length poetic documentary combining archive footage and original music composition which received a BAFTA Scotland nomination.