Heartbeat

Heartbeat is a Canadian drama written and directed by Andrea Dorfman (Love That Boy). It premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and stars a cast of amateur actors and musicians led by Tanya Davis.

Justine, paralyzed by stage fright, gave up a far fetched dream of becoming a singer songwriter and tucked her heart away, ignoring what it was desperately trying to tell her: that in order to live, it needs to beat. Now accustomed to avoiding what makes her heart beat, Justine is stuck. She lives in a mausoleum – the house she inherited from her grandmother; writes uninspired copy for a data management company and lies to her best friend, Lorna, about continuing to sleep with her ex, Ben. After Ben leaves town, putting an end to their late night trysts, Justine, depressed and unfulfilled, picks up her dusty guitar and finally faces the music – her music and her heart begins to beat again. Heartbeat mixes Justine’s live-action story about facing her greatest fear with an animated fable about the joy of her beating heart.

Aside from the fact that her and Davis are friends and frequent collaborators, there were other reasons why director Andrea Dorfman cast a lot of first time actors like Davis. “I feel like musicians are natural performers. Tanya has performed her music and poetry for years and Stephanie (Clattenburg) plays the drums in different bands, so I felt confident that they would be able to pull it off. In the end they did more than that––their performances were remarkable! Ultimately, I feel that given the right conditions, pretty much anyone can act.”

Heartbeat is rated 14A.

Click here for more movie trailers!