Taken In

FEATURE FILM \ RUN TIME: 69:05

A newly remastered version of Chris White’s 2011 improvised feature which was made entirely with cash and in-kind contributions from friends and family. The story (co-written with his wife Emily Reach White), was inspired by his work with theatre students at a therapeutic boarding school in southern Virginia.

TAKEN IN is the story of a man who must spend the weekend with his estranged teenage daughter at a roadside resort. It is here that Simon (Tim Brosnan) and Brooklyn (Madelaine Hoptry) must confront the issues that have driven them apart, and ultimately choose how they will move forward…together or alone.

A near-perfect example of the American “mumblecore” cinema movement, writer-director White, inspired by Jim Jarmusch’s STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1984), fashioned a beat-sheet story outline, then crafted dialogue by improvising with his actors weeks before filming began. Then, in post-production, White and editor Jeter Rhodes, worked cinematographer Daniel McCord’s otherworldly black and white DSLR images into naturalistic, free-flowing sequences of alienation and restoration.