NYWIFT Member Screening: Familiar Touch

Join us for a NYWIFT Member Screening of the narrative feature Familiar Touch at Tribeca Screening Room, followed by a Q&A with Writer, Director, Producer and NYWIFT Member Sarah Friedland and cast members Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle and H. Jon Benjamin. Moderated by Kate Erbland (IndieWire).

Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Time: 6:00pm ET
Location: Tribeca Screening Room (375 Greenwich St #2, New York, NY 10013)
Price: $7 for NYWIFT Members*, $15 for non-members
(Discount is applied after login)

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*NYWIFT Platinum and Leadership Circle Members attend for free!

About the Film

Familiar Touch

Runtime: 1h 30min

Director: Sarah Friedland
Writer: Sarah Friedland
Producer: Alexandra Byer, Matthew Thurm, Sarah Friedland
Cast: Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle, Andy McQueen, H. Jon Benjamin

Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), a retired cook, prepares breakfast in her sunny and cozy kitchen — a dish she seems to have made many times before, although small and puzzling errors now punctuate her comfortable routine. When her son (H. Jon Benjamin) arrives to dine with her, she mistakes him for a suitor. Their “date” takes them to an assisted living facility, which Ruth does not remember that she had previously selected for herself. Among her fellow memory care residents, Ruth feels lost and adrift, certain she has found herself somewhere she does not belong

As she slowly begins to accept the warmth and support of care workers Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle) and Brian (Andy McQueen), she finds new ways to ground herself in her body, even as her mind embarks on a journey all its own. Writer-director Sarah Friedland’s coming-of-old-age feature compassionately follows the winding path of octogenarian Ruth’s shifting memories and desires while remaining rooted in her sage perspective.

Watch Trailer!

Q&A Participants

Sarah Friedland (Writer/Director) is a filmmaker and choreographer working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies. Her work has been presented in festivals and art spaces including the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Mubi, MoMA and the Performa19 Biennial. Sarah graduated from Brown University’s department of Modern Culture and Media and started her career assisting filmmakers including Steve McQueen, Mike S. Ryan, and Kelly Reichardt. From 2021 – 2022, she was both a Pina Bausch Fellow for Choreography and a NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Film/Video, and was named to Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2023. Her short film trilogy, Movement Exercises, is distributed by Video Data Bank. Sarah has been working in creative aging for the last eight years, as a caregiver to artists with dementia, and as a teaching artist facilitating intergenerational films and workshops for older adults. Familiar Touch is her debut feature film.

Kathleen Chalfant (Ruth) has spent more than five decades performing on stage, screen, and TV. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Vivian Bearing in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, WIT, for which she received Obie, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, and Ovation awards. Other critically acclaimed roles include Hannah Pitt/Ethel Rosenberg in the original cast of Tony Kushner’s groundbreaking Angels in America, receiving nominations for both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards. Notable film credits include Kinsey, Duplicity, and The Last Days of Disco, among many others. Her beloved TV characters include playing Margaret Butler on Showtime’s The Affair, as well as roles in House of Cards, The Americans, Madame Secretary, Elementary, High Maintenance, and all of the various Law and Orders. Kathleen has collaborated with acclaimed experimental filmmakers and choreographers, including Yvonne Rainer, Barbara Hammer, and Pam Tanowitz.

Carolyn Michelle (Vanessa) is best known for her recurring roles in Showtime’s The Chi and Netflix’s Russian Doll. Other TV credits include USA’s Colony, Netflix’s House of Cards, OWN’s Cherish the Day as well as episodes on Law and Order, Marvel’s Luke Cage, and How to Get Away with Murder.

Jon Benjamin (Steve) is “Sterling Archer,” the lead voice of the FX animated series Archer, as well as the lead voice of Bob’s Burgers on Fox. He was previously an executive producer and the star of the Comedy Central series Jon Benjamin Has a Van. He can also be seen on the Netflix series Master of None and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.

Kate Erbland (Moderator) is the New York–based Editorial Director at IndieWire. She manages and directs all of IndieWire’s features and reviews teams (including film, TV, and awards), oversees editorial strategy on all fronts, leads the rollout of the site’s original stories, and writes and edits daily. Her award-winning work places a special emphasis on female filmmakers, in-depth interviews, and awards season coverage.

She has worked at IndieWire since 2015. During her time at IndieWire, she has shaped the site’s coverage and strategy on everything from film festivals to interviews, shaped and guided the incredibly popular biannual IndieWire Honors ceremony and coverage, curated numerous packages (including robust end of the year efforts, ’90s Week, and other signature pieces), and somehow lived through six evenings spent backstage in the Oscar trenches.

Some of her previous work can be found at a variety of publications, including Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, The Dissolve, Vulture, New York Daily News, Mental Floss, amNY, MTV.com, Details.com, Film School Rejects, MSN Movies, and Boxoffice Magazine. She has served on juries and nominating committees for the Gothams, the Critics Choice Awards, the Cinema Eye Honors, the SXSW Film and TV Festival, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, DOC NYC, the Sarasota Film Festival, the Nantucket Film Festival, Palm Springs ShortFest, among others.