Taken Home

US Premiere
16:50 m / Live Action Short / Canada

Saturday, November 9, 2019
Laemmle Music Hall | 1:00pm to 2:30pm | Program One

Shortly after being placed with a new foster family, Tom and Claire, two young Indigenous siblings are forced to confront the realities of their situation as a dark secret threatens to tear them apart forever. Taken Home is a film about the inability of Indigenous youth to maintain a connection to their culture and identity while in the foster care system and the effects this institution can have on the children forced into it.

Director: Jonathan Elliott
Cast: Austin Silversmith, Sarah Swerid, Monica Knox, Lisa Kovack, John-Riley O’Handley
Screenwriter: Jonathan Elliott
Producer: Jonathan Elliott, Erica Orofino

Includes a post screening Q&A with the director (s)

Director (s)

JONATHAN ELLIOTT is a Tuscarora filmmaker from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. Since attending York University’s Film Production program, he has worked as a director and cinematographer on a variety of projects, including: Even in the Silence (Voices with Impact funded short film, entirely in the Mohawk language), Taken Home (Toronto Arts Council funded film), Her Water Drum (imagineNATIVE commissioned film), Wild Archaeology (APTN TV series), This Wild Season (imagineNATIVE 2017 film festival), Blood Child (Blood in the Snow film festival), Teens 101(CHCH broadcast), Glitch, Two Wolves and Fantome.

Jonathan’s award-winning work has been nationally broadcast and screened at various film festivals internationally in Italy, Germany, the United States and Canada.

Jonathan was the 2018 artist-in-residence for the imagineNATIVE/CSV development program. He was selected as one of the Emerging 20 artists at the Reel World Film Festival and has been the recipient of grants through the Toronto Arts Council, imagineNATIVE and Art With Impact to produce his work.

Currently, Jonathan is in development on several projects, including his first feature film. He is a creative director and founder of Paper Frame Pictures, a Toronto-based film production company.

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