3 Backyards

Director: Eric Mendelsohn
Screenwriters: Eric Mendelsohn

Institute History

Description

A trio of brief, yet potentially life-altering, adventures unfold on one seemingly normal autumn day. In a complacent suburban neighborhood, an emotionally troubled businessman (Elias Koteas) wanders around his hometown while waiting for a delayed flight, a starstruck housewife (Edie Falco) embarks on an peculiar trip when she gives her famous neighbor a ride to the local ferry, and an eight-year-old girl takes a wrong turn on the way to school and finds herself in an unexpected adult realm.

Eric Mendelsohn (Judy Berlin—Sundance Film Festival 1999) shapes an intense and detailed domestic drama of quiet suspense. With its unconventional visual style, 3 Backyards looks and feels like a film from another time—possibly the past or the near future. Its identifiable characters and often painfully human scenarios work in tandem to pry out unsettling emotional truths of our times—creating a memorable story of turning points in these three lives.


(Archives note: see also YouTube Channel.)

— Kim Yutani

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

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