The Calgary Underground Film Festival
Heaven Knows What
USA/France, 2014: 93 Minutes: Alberta Premiere
description
Harley loves Ilya. So when Ilya asks Harley to prove her love by slitting her wrists, she obliges with only mild hesitation, perhaps because of her other all-consuming love: heroin.
In HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT Arielle Holmes is Harley in her searing film debut, based on her real-life story of heroin addiction and scraping by on the streets of New York City.
Adapted from Holmes's unpublished memoirs, celebrated filmmaker siblings Josh and Benny Safdie (LENNY COOKE, DADDY LONGLEGS) fuse fiction and documentary realism, shooting on location and blending actors with real drug dealers and street people, as they chronicle the story of the young addict.
OFFICIAL SELECTION:
Venice Film Festival 2014
Toronto International Film Festival 2014
SXSW 2015
DIRECTORS BIO:
Josh and Benny Safdie were born and raised in New York City. Their work has earned them multiple festival jury awards, FIPRESCI’s, Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. Their films have been released all over the world, premiering at international film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Venice and SXSW.
press for Heaven Knows What
"New York-based brothers Josh and Benny Safdie look past Manhattan’s glossy surfaces to reveal an underworld of homeless young heroin addicts hidden in plain sight."- The New Yorker
"HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT quickly obtains an oddly charming rhythm, a sense of eavesdropping on sometimes unlikable, but fully realized, social outsiders."- A.V. Club