Charliebird

Libby Ewing · 2025 · 98 minutes
Nov. 8 · Regal 2 · 5:15 p.m.

When a music therapist begins working with a unique young patient, she is confronted with her past and what it means to live. Set in a small, rural town in Texas. 

Programmer’s Note

The idea for Charliebird first struck Samantha Smart during the COVID years. The actress was preoccupied at the time by thoughts of rural Texas, where she’d grown up, and was also struggling with grief after losing several people in her life. Smart pitched the story to her friend, actress/director Libby Ewing, who encouraged her to turn it into what would eventually become her first screenplay. They then developed the project together, visiting locations in Texas and spending time with hospital staff, drawing connections between the traumatic experiences of patients, their families, and healthcare workers.

Smart stars as Al, a music therapist at a children’s hospital, where on a typical day she might lead a group of kids in a singalong or dress up in a borrowed costume, while also helping those same kids and their parents navigate the everyday boredom, stresses, and sorrow of chronic sickness. It’s a remarkable balancing act. One of her patients, Charlie (Gabriela Ochoa Perez in a breakout performance), a teenager who has spent most of the previous three years in similar hospitals, touches something deeper in Al, and as they grow closer and more honest with one another, the relationship triggers unwelcome and painful memories for Al.

Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin once argued the case for melodrama, a genre too often dismissed as excessive sentimentality, by defending it as “true life uninhibited, just like our dreams.” Charliebird is a brilliant melodrama in Maddin’s sense, and that alone makes it a rare find in contemporary American regional cinema. Ewing makes great use of every expressive tool at her disposal to purge emotions, beginning with the tight, snapshot-inspired frame that cinematographer Luca Del Puppo achieved by rotating an anamorphic lens ninety degrees. Charliebird is a tear-jerker in the grand tradition of cinematic tear-jerkers.

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Libby Ewing is an award-winning director, writer, and actor who grew up in the foothills of Appalachia. Over the years, she has been awarded for her acting work, as well as directing for a pilot presentation. As a writer, Ewing was invited to attend CineStory Foundation Retreat. Her short films have been featured on various platforms. Most recently, Ewing’s feature directorial debut Charliebird, received the Founders Award for Best Picture at Tribeca Festival 2025. Her work focuses on female driven stories that explore themes of class, spirituality, and grief. She splits time between LA, Ohio and NYC.

Samantha Smart is an actor, writer, and producer from League City, Texas, where Charliebird was filmed. Charliebird is her screenwriting and producing debut. It had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival, where it won the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature. Samantha splits her time between New York and France.