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LIPSTICK & VODKA

By Natalie BOLTT

Drama - Development 2020

Two senior single parents, MIRIAM and PATEL, create an atmosphere of chaos with their shared desire to flout the rules o the senior care facility they are imprisoned in, and to find some dignity in what is left of their lives.

- Year of production
- 2020
- Genres
- Drama, Historical, Jewish
- Countries
- CANADA, GERMANY
- Languages
- ENGLISH, GERMAN
- Budget
- 5 - 10 M$
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Natalie BOLTT
- Writer(s)
- Manu CHOPRA
- Producer(s)
- Rosanne MILLIKEN (Gynormous Pictures), Jan FANTL
- Synopsis
- Miriam, a reluctant new resident at St. Joseph's Senior home, is given a tube of scarlet lipstick during a Secret Santa exchange. To everyone's shock, Miriam flings the lipstick away as if it's scorched her hand. Strangely, far too many "things" at St. Joseph's stir up horrible images for Miriam. Is this a haunting? or has Miriam's dementia becoming a type of prison?
  Most of the time, the overworked staff has no time nor inclination to help Miriam work through her nightmares. But one evening, Karen, an immigrant worker, who has more empathy for the patients than most, starts to observe Miriam and her interrelations with the other patients and staff. Especially interesting to her is the "to and fro" between Miriam and alcoholic Patel (74), a motor mouth of Indian heritage equipped with a bawdy sense of humour. As hard as Patel tries to flirt his way into Miriam's heart, she reads with either disdain or amusement.
  As more triggers emerge we are drawn into the flashbacks of Miriam's past - that of being a 6 year old child in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
  Patel, also has his own secrets, secrets that are so heartbreaking that eventually Miriam starts to see who Patel really is and falls for him...but too late.
  While her time at Bergen Belsen is responsible for her debilitating fear and misplaced anger, Miriam will soon will also realize it's equipped her with the strength, spirit and resolve she needs in order to heal and finally break free of the pain that has been destroying her.
- Partners & financing
- German - Canada co-production