AWINTERTABLE
A culinary ghost story
About the Film
A Winter Table is a new dramatic thriller by Derek Kimball whose 2016 feature, Neptune, was lauded as one of the best films to come out of the Slamdance Film Festival in years. A Winter Table is in development with support from the Sundance Institute and was selected for the Gotham Week (formerly IFP) Project Market.
Chef Elizabeth Taft won’t admit it, but she’s restless.
Stymied in the rural quiet of her husband’s family farm, she longs to commit herself to her truest love: cooking. When her husband, Thomas suffers a debilitating stroke that leaves him unable to walk or speak, she’s pressured to subdue her identity in order to meet the demands of her new role as his caretaker.
About the Film
A Winter Table is a new dramatic thriller by Derek Kimball whose 2016 feature, Neptune, was lauded as one of the best films to come out of the Slamdance Film Festival in years. A Winter Table is in development with support from the Sundance Institute and was selected for the Gotham Week (formerly IFP) Project Market.
Chef Elizabeth Taft won’t admit it, but she’s restless.
Stymied in the rural quiet of her husband’s family farm, she longs to commit herself to her truest love: cooking. When her husband, Thomas suffers a debilitating stroke that leaves him unable to walk or speak, she’s pressured to subdue her identity in order to meet the demands of her new role as his caretaker.
Soon, she begins to hear a voice.
It’s calling from the unfinished section of the old house. An impossibly hungry voice, calling for her in her husband’s voice. But since it can’t be him, who is it? Why is it stealing the food she cooks for Thomas? And what will happen when it takes a corporeal form and comes in from the cold?
A culinary ghost story.
With themes of transformation, self-expression and love, A Winter Table combines elements of a classic ghost story and an exploration of our complex relationship with food. The result is a powerful story of a woman’s struggle to cast off the identity that is forced upon her and step into her own skin for the first time.
Soon, she begins to hear a voice.
It’s calling from the unfinished section of the old house. An impossibly hungry voice, calling for her in her husband’s voice. But since it can’t be him, who is it? Why is it stealing the food she cooks for Thomas? And what will happen when it takes a corporeal form and comes in from the cold?
A culinary ghost story.
With themes of transformation, self-expression and love, A Winter Table combines elements of a classic ghost story and an exploration of our complex relationship with food. The result is a powerful story of a woman’s struggle to cast off the identity that is forced upon her and step into her own skin for the first time.
director's statement
I love folktales. I'm inspired by their regional flavor and the way they communicate the ineffable. Many of us understand how it feels to live beneath the weight of an identity or role that was imposed upon us and many of us stay mired in those roles out of loyalty or fear of change. A film about a dysfunctional marriage can certainly talk about these things, but by infusing A Winter Table with motifs from old stories and folktales, I'm hoping to depict our tendency to squirm under those identities imposed on us as something fundamentally human and to elevate the struggle with which we cast those identities off as something bordering the sacred.
a little help from our friends
The screenplay for A Winter Table was written by Derek Kimball and was workshopped at Sundance Institute’s Film2 program by writer Joan Tewksberry (Robert Altman’s Nashville) and director Karyn Kusama (The Invitation).
The script also benefited from the input of graphic novelist Emily Carroll, who’s NYT bestseller Through the Woods is a brilliant representation of the value of folk trends in new literature.
Film2 fellows Sally El Hosaini (The Swimmers), Ingrid Jungerman (Women Who Kill), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Sheldon Candis (LUV) and Clea DuVall (Happiest Season).
cast and crew
A Winter Table's development team is in the midst of procuring the lead roles and key department heads. Check back soon for some exciting news!