Forget Me Not
Vanessa King, Cart Before Horse Media
Language: English
Based On: Original Screenplay
Project Type: Feature Film (Scripted)
Genre: Drama
Stage of Development: Script & Director Attachment
Estimated Length: 85 minutes
Director: Vanessa King
Director Bio
Vanessa King is a New Brunswick-based producer, story editor, screenwriting and director with nearly two decades of hands-on entertainment experience working with Oscar-winning talent. Her award-winning scripts have been recognized by industry giants like the AMPAS Nicholl Fellowship and Sony Worldwide Entertainment. She cofounded the free and educationally based New York City Screenwriters Co-Op and has been faculty as a screenwriting instructor at various public and graduate-level universities. She is a four-time appointee of The Diversity List and in 2019 was named an "industry thought leader" by Forbes Magazine for her work with Final Draft screenwriting software. She has coordinated and judged dozens of film festivals, consults for Harlem Film House and is a final round judge for UCLA's Master's Screenwriter Showcase. She is passionate about low-cost/no cost film education and is heavily involved in crew workforce development initiatives in New Brunswick. She is an Executive Board Member of Media NB, a member of WIFT-AT, a member of the NB Film Coop and is on the filmmaker advisory board of AIFF.
Proposed or confirmed talent: Actor - Leni Parker (confirmed); Producer - Megan Thelosen (confirmed), DP - James MacDonald (confirmed)
Total Budget: $350,000
Percent Confirmed: $0
Currency: CAD
What is this project seeking?
Financing
Logline:
After her estranged stepfather dies, a tightly-wound middle-aged woman returns home intending to place her mother with dementia into care; instead, they are forced onto an unexpected road trip across Atlantic Canada.
Synopsis :
After the death of her estranged stepfather, Wynn Doyle, a tightly controlled middle-aged woman, returns to New Brunswick to collect the mother she has not seen in years. Wynn has built her life around order and routine, keeping emotional chaos at a distance. That control is tested when she finds Bernie living with advancing dementia and no longer able to live alone.
Funny, defiant, and disarmingly sharp in flashes, Bernie drifts between present and past. Wynn’s plan is simple: get her on a plane and bring her home. But at the airport, Bernie becomes overwhelmed, triggering a public meltdown that makes flying impossible. With no other option, Wynn rents a car and begins the long drive east toward a care home in Newfoundland.
The trip becomes an odyssey across Atlantic Canada. Bernie fixates on a “red house” surrounded by forget-me-nots and insists they must find it, slipping in and out of memory as she goes. Along the way, they pick up Ben, a hitchhiker racing to reach his dying father, whom Bernie mistakes for someone from her own past.
As they move through motels, ferry crossings, roadside diners, and long stretches of highway, Wynn’s rigid control begins to unravel. Frustration and humour collide as Bernie shoplifts, wanders off, and pulls Wynn into strange games rooted in fragments of memory. What initially appears to be confusion begins to feel more purposeful. Wynn starts to wonder whether her mother is not simply forgetting, but trying to hold onto something real before it disappears.
In Newfoundland, Bernie’s memories align long enough to lead them to a remote shoreline from Wynn’s childhood. There, mother and daughter share their first real moment of connection in decades. When Ben learns his father is near death, Wynn drives him to the hospital, confronting echoes of her own unresolved grief.
Reaching the city, Wynn discovers there are no care placements available. Faced with having nowhere else to take her mother, she makes an unexpected choice: she brings Bernie home.
In Wynn’s once-pristine house, now marked by the quiet disruptions of caregiving, Bernie tries to leave, convinced she needs to go home. Wynn stops her, takes her hand, and says, “You are home.”
Contact Information: vk@cartbeforehorsemedia.com
