Eylul Guven in Blue Heron. Cr: TIFF
Blue Heron
a film directed and written by Sophy Romvari, and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 4–14, 2025
Affeksjonsverdi [Sentimental Value]
a film directed by Joachim Trier and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 4–14, 2025
After 11 long days, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has concluded. I write this after returning from my fourteenth and final movie of the festival. I’m sleep deprived, stiff, and potentially a little delirious. But all in all, the TIFF’s fiftieth year—or as it both lovingly and mockingly became known, thanks to a cringeworthy Cineplex ad—TIFFTY, was a great time. When thinking about which films to review, two stuck out to me with the way they meditate on grief, memory, art, and cinema: Sophy Romvari’s debut feature Blue Heron and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi).
While Sentimental Value was a big title coming into the festival, after receiving the Grand Prix (the second best film) at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, I remained ignorant of Blue Heron until I picked up tickets to fill a gap in my schedule. While it lacked Sentimental Value’s pomp and circumstance, Hungarian-Canadian director Sophy Romvari’s debut feature ended up as a personal festival favourite.
It tells the semi-autobiographical story of eight-year-old Sasha (representing Romvari, played by Eylul Guven) growing up as the daughter of Hungarian immigrants on Vancouver Island. Through Sasha’s eyes, we see Romvari uncover and rework trauma through childhood memories as her family is threatened and fractured due to the increasingly dangerous behaviour of her older brother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes). Sophy Romvari’s autobiographical approach feels so unique and personal, with the script and story composed of her remembrance and old camcorder footage found in her father’s possessions. By her own admission, the script is “based on memories,” but she also suggests many of hers were “false, missing, or misplaced in time.” Blue Heron thereby becomes a beautiful recreation and attempt to work through her fragmented recollections, gaining some power over the pain they evoke in her.
Aesthetically, the film is riveting. Director of Photography Maya Bankovic’s beautiful long-lens photography gives the first hour a dreamlike, observational feel. Jeremy is shot through windows, from far away, or through Sasha’s father’s camcorder. The shots are subtle and unobtrusive.When paired with the film’s 90s set dressing, production, and the sound design which hones in on idle sounds—like the creaking of flooboards—the viewer is enveloped in Romvari’s recreation of her childhood.
The distinctiveness and emotional intelligence, however, comes in the film’s final 30 minutes, where it jumps forward to Sasha reviewing her childhood memories, which Romvari said in the post-showing Q&A is something she deliberately tries to do through her career as a filmmaker. It turns into a fictitious documentary-type film as we watch older Sasha going back into scenes we have previously seen.
This meta, confrontational style of engaging with trauma and grief through art, while utterly personal, left me, and I think most audience members, in tears by the end. It is beautiful, honest, and displays a level of vulnerability that resonates very deeply, despite the plot’s specificity. Watching an adult Sasha as a proxy for Romvari working through distressing scenes and coming to terms with her experiences—and putting it to screen—displays the healing power of art.
Stellan Skarsgård (L) and Elle Fanning (R) in Sentimental Value. Cr: TIFF
In Sentimental Value, similar themes are explored. Instead of the personal direction Blue Heron takes, Trier uses his fictional characters to highlight the power of art and cinema. The film depicts Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) as a renowned director attempting to reconcile a broken and estranged relationship with his daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas).
Like in Blue Heron, memory is integral to the film. However, it is the clarity of these memories that affect Nora, as well as the hole that Gustav left in her childhood. In an interview with Deadline, Trier says that while “none of the characters are really me,” he and his co-writer, Eskil Vogt, have been “in the shoes of all of [the characters].” He suggests that generational trauma may have affected his family, and he wanted to examine its proliferation.
Gustav is able to express himself only through his art, and seems avoidant in real life. Instead of simply speaking and reaching out to his daughter, he attempts to cast her in a film about his life to be close to her physically and emotionally. This is something that annoys Nora; she yearns for a real relationship with her father, something Gustav simply does not know how to achieve. However, this is the only way she can repair this bond with her dad, and the film suggests the possibility of its efficacy.
Trier famously said at Cannes that “tenderness is the new punk,” and that sentiment is displayed throughout the movie. It’s understated, thoughtful, and, like Blue Heron, evokes an emotional relatability through its rich and complex family dynamics. It uses fiction to brilliantly reflect on how art, and particularly cinema, restore and cultivate bonds.
If Sentimental Value is the theory, Blue Heron is the practice.