My Friend Harry is a feature length hybrid documentary set on Salt Spring Island, BC. The film traces the unusual friendship between filmmaker Liz Cairns and her subject, Harry Warner, as their relationship blossoms and they both face life-altering health diagnoses. With intimate access into the complex, eccentric and witty man that is Harry , Liz explores the nature of filmmaking and the creative process, the vitality and ephemerality of friendship, and the ad hoc community that arises over the course of making a film.
LOGLINE
After a chance encounter, a filmmaker and an eccentric senior form an unlikely friendship when they embark on making a movie together.
SYNOPSIS
When Liz first meets Harry, an 80 year old living in a one-room hut, he insists he has no friends, other than his scraggly dog, Ziggy. Liz is drawn to Harry, his captivating surroundings, and his unique rhythms and routines. Harry agrees to let Liz photograph him, and an artist-muse relationship emerges between them. But Harry soon grows bored of performing his morning routine for Liz, suggesting they make a movie instead.
When Harry learns he’s been diagnosed with cancer, Liz rushes to put a shoot together, casting Harry in the lead role. Two days before the production begins, Liz receives a cancer diagnosis of her own. Over the next year, as they undergo treatment side by side, their relationship grows. When Harry shares an ambitious idea for a film of his own, Liz agrees to help him make it, only to face a major setback when their 16mm footage is damaged in the development process. As Harry’s health declines, Liz draws on all her resources and her small team of peers to see that Harry’s vision is realized, no matter what it takes.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Over the last decade, I’ve been making narrative films, honing my craft to gesture at lived experience. Through the years, I’ve met people far more interesting than any character I could write. Harry Warner is one of those people. Where he lives is undeniably cinematic - a cob structure melting into the earth, with little hand-built structures scattered about, comprising a kitchen, a greenroom, a meditation room, and an outhouse. Harry is an imposing figure, with sun-spotted skin and white wayward hair, and a little cross earring that dangles from his ear. At first glance, we couldn’t be more different. Yet filmmaking is a means through which we can be vulnerable with one another in a way that wouldn’t be possible without a film camera mediating our relationship. And in doing so, some parallels between us have emerged. Our relationship deepened one day when I showed up with the camera, unable to hold back tears and admitted to Harry “the black dog was back”. Harry spent the morning opening up about his own battle with depression, eventually finding a grimy copy of his book “How to Heal Depression Naturally”. I felt seen by Harry and my mood lifted. Unbeknownst to either of us at the time, cancer was growing in our bodies. Harry and I would eventually be diagnosed within a month of one another.
- Liz Cairns, Director of “My Friend Harry”