Over the course of 15 days in June 2023, Villa Gardens transformed into a film set with residents and staff as members of the cast and crew. The film that emerged, Familiar Touch directed by Sarah Friedland, premiered at the Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition on September 3rd 2024 where it won three awards, including the Luigi de Laurentiis Award for Best Debut. In her acceptance speech, Sarah highlighted the work of the Villa Gardens community, sharing “none of this exists without the residents and staff of Villa Gardens, who invited us into their stories, home and workplace.”
Familiar Touch is a coming of (old) age film, that follows an octogenarian woman’s transition to life in assisted living as she contends with her conflicting relationship to herself and her caregivers amidst her shifting memory, age identity, and desires.
Understanding that filming can be an overwhelming experience, Sarah sought to transform the process at Villa Gardens by focusing on collaboration. “It’s a lot of trust to invite someone into your home,” says Shaun Rushforth, executive director of Villa Gardens. “I tried to say no to Sarah so many times. I thought it was such a terrible idea. I thought it was invasive. I thought our residents were going to be upset.” But after winning Shaun over, he said that wasn’t enough; Sarah had to win over the residents as well. That’s when Shaun introduced Sarah to Jean Owen, Resident Association President.
Jean had an initial conversation with Sarah to ensure the community would be respected. By hiring crew members that were open to working with older adults and speaking directly with residents to get their buy-in on the project, “I realized Sarah was very serious about this project and the content was important to her,” says Jean. “Bless her heart, she was so committed to getting people that were willing and intelligent about working with seniors, and all of her crew who were here for the month doing the filming were very, very deferential to us as seniors. There were no complaints from residents about the film people being rude or not understanding.”
The collaboration between the filmmakers and the Villa Gardens community began with a series of workshops in May 2023. Residents received hands-on experience learning about all aspects of filmmaking as Sarah and her crew taught residents about directing, editing, sound and more. Using these new skills, residents shot their own short films around the community.
Villa Gardens resident Lisa Tanahashi was initially unsure about the filmmaking workshops, but after trying it out, she was struck by Sarah and her crew’s attitude. “They wanted to listen to us. They didn’t have a preset idea of who we should be or what was the right answer and they let us be who we are,” she shares. “We looked at each other and we said, we don’t know what we’re doing but this is really fun.” The workshops continued to grow as participating residents talked with others about their experience and bonded over the filmmaking process.
After participating in the workshops, Lisa was excited to participate in the filming process as an assistant to the production designer. Since the film crew couldn’t use the art in the hallways, Lisa compiled a list of artists at the community and accompanied the film’s production designer Stephanie Osin Cohen on visits to each artist’s apartment. “It was a really special couple of days. People opened their homes to us and shared their artwork,” Lisa notes. “Everyone’s story was just so beautiful and we wouldn’t have known it otherwise.” Incorporating residents’ artwork into the set also allowed residents to participate who couldn’t physically be in the film or attend the workshops.
By the time filming for the feature began, friendships had blossomed between the community members and the film crew. These relationships and the time spent getting to know Villa Gardens transformed the film in both practical and personal ways. Observing everyday life at Villa Gardens shaped certain scenes, particularly dining scenes and moments of group activity in the film.
Staff members experiences also impacted the final film. “So many people, both residents and staff members, were candid with me about what needed to be reflected in depicting these experiences that we don’t usually see on screen,” Sarah notes. Magali Galvez, a caregiver at Villa Gardens, even walked the lead actress through an afternoon in her job so that the actress had first-hand experience she could draw on while portraying a caregiver in the film.
Outside of the lead actors, most of the staff members in the film are Villa Gardens staff, and residents also performed as background actors. Resident Dick Myers plays the husband of the lead actress’s best friend. “I got into the summer classes, and as we were sitting around afterwards, they were saying that they needed somebody to play one of the roles, and they needed a man, and they looked at me and said, ‘Can you do it?’ That was my audition,” he says. An Independent Living resident, Dick needed to play someone with a cognitive impairment. He was asked to hum something, and he chose an Irish lullaby. “I just hummed that, and when my ‘wife’ came over to me I looked up and acknowledged her, and smiled, but due to my dementia I didn’t say anything. That was my big moment in the film.” They did several shots, adjusting his hair or straightening his shirt in between takes, and putting stickers so the shirt would stay in place. “It was interesting to see the detail that went into what they were doing,” he says.
Lisa, who was sitting with the crew as they filmed the scene, says, “It brought tears to our eyes, the expression on his face, and what he conveyed without words.”
After the 15 days of filming, Sarah Friedland and her crew edited the footage and finished post production before submitting the final version to film festivals. The film was accepted into the prestigious Venice Film Festival where it had its world premiere on September 3rd, 2024 and won three awards in the Orizzonti section of the festival: best first film, best director and best lead actress.
Now that the film has premiered, Sarah hopes to enter the festival circuit and she is looking for an opportunity to bring the film back to LA. “We’re trying to find our Los Angeles premiere. That way we can bring the film back to Villa Gardens and have everyone see it,” she shares.
Residents continue to talk about the impact of the workshop and filming at Villa Gardens. “They were so much fun. It was a very positive experience,” Jean Owen remarks. As Lisa Tanahashi explains, “the experience changed us so we’re not the same people that we were before we started. We got to know each other and we got to laugh with and at each other and now, we walk a little taller and we feel things a little deeper.”
