Artist-turned-filmmaker Su Rynard has regularly visited the realm of science as a launching point for her artistic inquiry. With Kardia, she was inspired by a sense of human frailty and a fascination with biology and medical science. Kardia tells the story of Hope, a pathologist who discovers that the experimental heart operation she underwent as a child has mysteriously linked her life with another. To unlock the secret of her past, Hope revisits the curious tale of her childhood, while at the same time, explores the landscape of love, loss and the human heart. "As Hope asks in the end, how much of this story is memory and how much wish. She feels an interconnection with the man who volunteered his blood for her. His blood is part of her blood, his story part of her story. This shifts the level of the narrative from a memoir to a kind of fable about the heart, blood and interlocking lives and mysterious, even mystical connections." (Peter Malone, signis.net) Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Prize in Science and Technology at the 2005 Hamptons International Film Festival. More at kardiathefilm.com
2005, color, 1 hour 25 minutes, Canada