Small, Beautifully Moving Parts

Small, Beautifully Moving Parts

Sloan Foundation Film

Release Date

2011

Director

  • Annie Howell
  • Lisa Robinson

Cast

  • Anna Margaret Hollyman
  • Rhasaan Oyasaba Manning
  • Josephine Clausen

Awards

  • Hamptons International Film Festival, 2011

While traveling to California to attend her baby shower, a pregnant woman takes a side trip to find her long-estranged mother.

Sarah Sparks (Anna Margaret Hollyman) is pregnant and feeling wholly ambivalent, despite her boyfriend's pure enthusiasm. A committed tech-geek, she has always had more of a natural affinity for computers and machines than she has had for people. When her sister (Sarah Rafferty) convinces her to travel to Los Angeles for what ends up being an unwelcome surprise baby shower, Sarah takes an impulsive road trip to confront the source of her anxiety: her long-estranged mother (Mary Beth Peil) living far away and off-the-grid.

Possible Topics

  • How people’s relationships to technology have taken on the qualities of human relationships
  • The implications of our increasing dependence on technology

Past Programs

2013

2017

Robots and Storytelling

California Film Institute, San Rafael, CA