Bird in Hand

Melody C. Roscher · 2025 · 90 minutes
Nov. 7 · Regal 1 · 6:00 p.m.

Bird in Hand follows a biracial bride-to-be seeking a connection with her charismatic hippie mother, while using her wedding plans to manipulate everyone in her orbit.

Programmer’s Note

Bird Rowe (Alisha Wainwright) returns home from Brooklyn to rural Virginia, ostensibly to begin making wedding plans but with a secret goal of connecting with her Black father, who she’s never met. Being “home” means spending time with her mother, Carlotta (Emmy winner, Oscar nominee Christine Lahti), a free spirit who, even in her more senior years, seems unprepared for — or maybe just uninterested in — parenting. Carlotta and Bird communicate primarily in sarcasm and passive-aggression. Out of boredom, and with lingering doubts about her future plans, Bird also becomes entangled with Dennis (James Le Gros) and Leigh (Annabelle Dexter-Jones), a cringy couple who are restoring an old plantation and have plenty of issue of their own.

Born and raised outside of Richmond, Virginia, Roscher has spoken of the thick skin she needed as a bi-racial kid growing up in rural Chesterfield County. “I could believe in myself for myself, or I could rely on the world to somehow tell me I was worth something and worth listening to.” It’s easy to imagine Bird saying the same. Bird in Hand is Roscher’s debut feature as a writer and director, following nearly two decades as a successful producer of films by Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene), Antonio Campos (Simon Killer and Christine), and Josh Mond (James White), among others.

Roscher once told an interviewer, “I hope people don’t find [Bird] to be cynical because she’d be terrible if she was.” It’s true. Bird lies too easily and doesn’t hesitate to manipulate others, consequences be damned, but her heart is always — well, almost always — in the right place, and over the course of the film she gradually comes to new understanding about herself and about the people she loves. She’s not the only one. Every character in the film makes what could generously be described as … baby steps. Bird in Hand is a comedy about the painful, incremental growth that eventually/hopefully leads to something like maturity, no matter the age.

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Melody C. Roscher’s debut feature film as a writer and director, Bird In Hand premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in the US Competition. The film is preceded by a short film she wrote and directed, White Wedding, that premiered at 2021’s Sundance Film Festival. Her directing and writing work comes off years of Producing. Some notable works include Christine, James White, Simon Killer, and Martha Marcy May Marlene. She was nominated for two Independent Spirit awards including best first feature, and Piaget Producer’s Award. Other cult favorites include Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Catherine, starring Jenny Slate, and Robin Comisar’s Great Choice.

Craig Shilowich is a screenwriter and producer best known for his work on Antonio Campos’s Christine, starring Rebecca Hall, and the HBO Max Limited Series The Staircase starring Colin Firth and Toni Colette. Other notable works as a producer include Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story and Tom Quinn’s Colewell. Craig’s projects have garnered award nominations at the Oscars, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Emmys, and Golden Globes. He is one half of the production company THE WONDER CLUB along with Melody C. Roscher.