back home
Nisha Platzer, 2022, 90 min

Followed by Q&A with the filmmaker

Close-Up is delighted to welcome Nisha Platzer to present her first feature documentary, back home. This kaleidoscopic portrait of loss and healing follows the filmmaker’s pursuit to get to know her older brother, Josh, twenty years after he took his own life. As she connects with the friends who knew him best as a teen, a complex portrait emerges. Through intimate recollections re-imagined on Super8 and 16mm film, and lyrical images hand-processed with plants, seaweed, soil and ashes, back home floats between memory and present time in a fragmented meditation on identity, grief and loss: illuminating the transformative power of healing in community.

“In making this film, I did my best to capture the people and places Josh loved, hand-processing parts of the 16mm and super8 film with plants from the British Columbia mountains, seawater and seaweed from the Pacific Ocean. I buried parts of the film in the earth near the train tracks - Josh's favourite hangout spot, and used Josh’s own ashes on the celluloid, embedding the material of his story and my healing journey into the film material itself.” – Nisha Platzer