Source: Some information on this page may have been sourced as part of the 2023 Wikimedia Australia Partnership Projects grant, with the purpose of improving and expanding the use of Wikidata on our website. Wikidata is a free and open knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. Read more about this project here.
Simon (Matthew Ferguson), an adolescent at an elite Canadian boarding school, is looking forward to spending his Christmas holidays with his divorced parents. When he arrives in Toronto he discovers that his mother has been hospitalised and, for the first time, is told of her schizophrenia. This intimate drama, shot in the beautiful light of a north Canadian winter, is powerfully acted by Ferguson and by Judy Davis as the mother. Simon’s growing awareness of his mother’s illness results in his alienation from the concerns of his fellow classmates, and he becomes close to an older boy who initiates him into the rites of adulthood. This Australian, Canadian and Italian co-production was nominated for 6 AFI awards including Best Film.
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
306324
Language
English
Audience classification
MA
Subject categories
Education, Instruction, Teaching & Schools → Boarding schools
Feature films → Feature films - Australia
Feature films → Feature films - Canada
Feature films → Feature films - Italy
Food, Health, Lifestyle, Medicine, Psychology & Safety → Schizophrenia
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
VHS; Access Print (Section 1)