Home Before Dark

USA
1997, 35mm, Color, 110 min.

Director: Maureen Foley
Producers: Michael Williams, David Collins, Dorothy Aufiero, Maureen Foley
Cinematographers: Brian Heller, Mark Petersson
Editor: James Rutenbeck
Screenwriter: Maureen Foley
Music: Jeanine Cowen
Principal Cast: Katharine Ross, Patricia Kalember, Brian Delate, Helen Lloyd Breed, Stephanie Castellarin

Approaching adolescence, eleven-year-old Nora James (Stephanie Castellarin) wants nothing more than a normal life, but such is not her fate. Her seriously depressed mother, Dolores (Patricia Kalember), is institutionalized after a suicide attempt and Nora is sent to live with her prosperous aunt and uncle. Aunt Rose (Katharine Ross) initially welcomes Nora as the daughter she never had, but it's not long before she's perceived merely as a nuisance. Nora disrupts Rose's calm and orderly routine, and refuses to be molded into the perfect little lady of her aunt's dreams. She engineers a plan that will force her father (Brian Delate) to reunite what's left of their family, but the plan goes awry and Nora runs away to find her mother. Maureen Foley's compelling first feature, which debuted to critical praise at this year's Nantucket Film Festival, is a "modest coming-of-age film that packs a wallop because the crises in the life of its young protagonist turn out to really matter." (Variety)