Never Steady, Never Still

NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL, the feature film debut of Kathleen Hepburn, is a tender and heartbreaking story of a physically disabled mother and discontent son - each alienated from their world and struggling to manage in the face of grief, guilt and chronic disease. Having lived with Parkinson's Disease for almost two decades, Judy is faced with the heightened challenges of daily life when tragedy strikes on their isolated property on the shores of Stuart Lake. Meanwhile, her teenage son, pushed by his father to get a job on the oil fields, is grappling with the daunting task of becoming a man in world that has no apparent room for weakness. At its core, this is story of a mother's guilt at not being able to be the protector she feels she should be, and a son's overwhelming fear of never being enough -- both longing for the forgiveness of the other and debilitated by self-imposed emotional isolation.

Shot on 35mm in the quiet, isolated, and cinematic north of British Columbia, the film presents a story specific to its place and universal in its heart. Inspired by Hepburn's mother's own twenty-one-year struggle with Parkinson's Disease, the film delves into the intimacy and constraints of family with a carefully executed honesty. The harsh reality and beauty of the character's lives is exposed through a raw and observational gaze, not allowing the viewer to look away from the most difficult or intimate of moments, but finding solace in the beauty of the landscape and the peace of the land they call home.