Tina Kakadelis
At the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, writer/director Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron won the Best Canadian Discovery Award. The film follows one summer in the life of a family: mother (Iringó Réti), father (Ádám Tompa), oldest brother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), twin middle children (Liam Serg & Preston Drabble), and Sasha (Eylul Guven). The whole family can tell Jeremy is struggling, but he can’t find the words to vocalize what upsets him so greatly. Toward the end of the film, Blue Heron jumps forward in time to when Sasha has grown up (now played by Amy Zimmer) and attempts to piece together what happened in her childhood.
Zimmer is known for her alternative comedy. She runs in the same circles as Julio Torres, Patti Harrison, John Early, Ana Fabrega, and others. In recent years, Zimmer has starred in Problemista, Stress Positions, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, and Hannahs, a short film directed by India Donaldson. It was this short film, still comedic in nature, that caught Sophy Romvari’s eye for a role in Blue Heron.
I want to start with Hannahs because I read that was what put you on the path to Blue Heron. Watching it, your character in Hannahs feels very far from your character in Blue Heron. What do you feel Sophy saw that made her consider you for the role?
I think what maybe she saw was my experience working in a manner that I imagine she expected we’d work on with this. Something very intimate and collaborative, how I worked with Hannahs director India Donaldson.
While they’re different, it was a similar experience with Sophy, too. Blue Heron was very scripted, but Sophy said there was an element of improvisation that I was capable of that she was interested in.
Your audition was a 30-minute improv over Zoom, and that feels immensely difficult. What was that like?
It was unlike anything I’ve ever done before. Sophy was like, “We’re thinking maybe Sasha would have straight hair. Do you think you could try straightening your hair?” I hadn’t done that since maybe middle school, so a big part of me getting into character was blow-drying my own hair. [laughs]
My objective for the improvised session with our producer, Sara Wylie, was to obtain a case file about my family, about my brother. It was quite surreal because there was very little prompt outside of that. I just entered the Zoom as Sacha with my questions and was met with a lot of the answers you see in the film. When I finished the Zoom, I had no idea if I was meant to get what I wanted or not. I think the answer’s clear in the film, but at the time, there was a certain, almost quiet, slightly mystical feeling for me. I was like, “Well, if I did what I was supposed to do, then it’s not up to me.”
People often say that comedy is far harder than drama. You have an immense comedic background, and now this dramatic role. Do you agree with that saying?
For comedy, the barrier to entry is low, which is a great thing. You get your feedback immediately. There’s a similar feeling with drama and its effectiveness, but it’s much harder to pinpoint. A laugh is a laugh, and a laugh is the decision on whether it works or not.
Comedy can be tougher in that way, where you’re ruled by the last laugh you got. With drama, I think it’s more subjective among people whether or not a scene is dramatically effective.
I never thought about it like that because there are so many movies that make you emotional, but they don’t always get that tear. That laugh, though, you always get.
To me, the tear is the great magic trick of film. Comedy can feel that way, too. It’s kind of like a miracle when anybody laughs. It’s also a miracle when you’re moved. When I watch movies that move me, I’m trying to follow what happened to make me feel that way. Sort of like a joke. It’s a mysterious, subjective thing that just hit somebody a certain kind of way.
What I remember being so striking about your character is how much of an observer she is. Comedy feels so active, whereas this is much more passive, yet still guiding the film. How do you balance that and be an active observer in this film?
Sophy and I talked about it a lot. It was something we were both very artistically interested in because it’s a hard thing to strike where a woman is central to the story, and yet her perspective is the very thing that’s up for interpretation. Interrogating how she’s built her life, how she’s built her memories, how life has been built for her.
We wanted that to be a compelling and active pursuit for her. We’re interested in the challenge of bringing that character into a film in a really compelling way. Sophy gave me a list of films she’s termed “Subtle Women’s Cinema.” Subtlety is something I’ve always really enjoyed in comedy and in drama. I love the big stuff, too. I die for the big stuff. Blue Heron was about an interior build.
I feel very lucky that Sophy put a lot of trust in me. Coming from this comedy background, she had this sense of, whatever was to happen, she trusted me with it. I didn’t take that lightly and was very grateful for that trust.
I think building the interiority and building a sense of what had transpired up until you see adult Sasha, because there’s this big shift, was something I carried with me into it after our discussions.
Do you remember your favorite of the Subtle Women cinema that you watched?
Oh, my God. I’d rank them all pretty equally. We did watch Justine Triet’s Sibyl, which I loved, and Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies, which is incredible. Both of those…they take the number one spot in the list. All the films were amazing, but I loved the performances in both. There were moments of reflection and quietness that I really responded to. They completely enchanted me when I watched them and gave me the confidence to be like, “Whatever it is we do, we can have the patience and trust in the audience to come along with a quieter decision and have it feel vital.”
You mentioned how your character comes in at a shift in the film. We’ve spent most of the time with Eylul as young Sasha. I know you were on set for part of when they were filming the ’90s section, but how much of her performance did you watch? What important characteristics showed up in her performance and in your performance that speak to the essence of who Sasha is?
It’s funny because I’ve seen the film a couple of times now. I think about Sasha as a character between the two of us, and also that experience of being there on set. It was very important to us that I could spend some time at the house in Vancouver before I started shooting because I would have a different schedule from everyone else.
I got on a plane to Vancouver and entered these sunny, summer days, where I met the family for the first time and spent time with them. Everybody involved became very, very close on set. A family summer camp vibe. I was struck a little by the natural separation that had happened when I was coming with a lot of my adult Sasha moodiness and feelings. I had these ideas about what Sasha had become over this period of time, and to watch young Sasha, where not everything is cooked yet—there was a natural juxtaposition.
Eylul and I weren’t studying each other, although it was a lot of fun to be like, “I’m Sasha, and you’re Sasha, we’re the same person.” A lot of Eylul’s joy and effervescence, as a person and as an actor, really touched and informed me. I remember that while we were shooting the contemporary stuff, it really informed how I felt. She gives such a beautiful performance, it’s really wonderful.
You’ve mentioned throughout our conversation that there’s something mysterious and magical about the film and its subject. It’s been nine months since I watched it, but the scene where the brother is messing around in the kitchen just stuck with me. Is there a moment, from your sequence or from the ’90s sequence, that sticks out to you and speaks to that mysterious, magical, kind of melancholy feeling that the film captures?
I was talking with a friend the other day about the moment where Adam, the father, gives young Sasha the camera. I was there when that happened. I was like, “Oh my God, he’s giving her the camera.” I was already destroyed by that, and the movie hadn’t even been assembled.
It’s an image that stays with me because there’s a layer of resonance to what I was doing. Like what the camera actually meant for my character. What the lens meant for me, and what the value of the documented image means for me as a character, is this magical, mysterious, and really heartbreaking thing, ultimately.
You’ve been working on a feature after spending this time acting. Is there something from your time in these roles that’s influencing you in a way that, had you not done Hannahs and Blue Heron, may not have come about in your writing process?
I’ve been thinking about that a lot because, with Sophie and the other filmmakers I’ve worked with, there’s a clarity of purpose that’s really essential. The energy you bring to the environment is so crucial to the thing you want to make. There are decisions made on every level that, if you’re lucky, come together in a mysterious, poetic way. I really want to take with me the craft and the care that were put into each part of this film and the other films I’ve worked on, too.
As an actor in those environments, you’re provided a ton of freedom when there’s a real assuredness about what we’re all doing. It’s very hard to make small movies. Everyone gets stressed at a certain point, but it’s the response to those moments and how morale is prioritized that’s very touching to me. It allows a lot of people to do their best work.
Are you thinking about directing?
I am, yeah. I’d been thinking about it, and it’s really been tremendous to watch somebody like Sophy or somebody like India [Donaldson]. To watch how they do it. In all those circumstances, I never felt the added crunch of trying to make independent movies, which is a true magic trick. It’s really not easy. Maybe I’m repeating myself, but I think it was a huge reason that the end result is something people are responding to. I think that type of integrity ripples out.
