Lift Share is a multi-award winning short drama film starring Ana Ularu, (Siberia, Inferno, Emerald City) and Mark Rowley, (The Last Kingdom, Macbeth) and is directed by Berlinale award winning writer/director, Virginia Heath.
Lift Share has won the award for ‘Best Drama Short’ at the Annual Copenhagen Film Festival 2019 and the award for ‘Best Sound Design’ at the Underwire Film Festival 2018 – UK’s premiere film festival dedicated to celebrating women filmmakers. The film premiered in Official Competition at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 2018
Lift Share is a Faction North Production, made with support from Screen Scotland, BFI, Scottish Film Talent Network, An Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) and Kolik Films.
The emotionally compelling, female driven script is written by Director Virginia Heath and Editor Stella Heath Keir and this close inter-generational creative relationship is the driving force that gives Lift Share its unique artistic vision. Cinematographer Julian Schwanitz captures the raw beauty of the Scottish Outer Hebrides to stunning visual effect.
In Lift Share, two strangers meet through an online lift share website: a young Romanian woman, Marina, (Ana Ularu) in search of a child that was forcibly taken from her; and a Scottish musician, Murdoch (Mark Rowley), returning to the Isle of Harris to face up to the death of his violent, estranged father. As they drive the long miles from Edinburgh to the Outer Hebrides, the film moves between present and future time frames as each character imagines what they might do on arrival.
On approaching the ferry that will take them to the remote Hebridean isles, Murdoch’s crisis about attending his father’s funeral forces Marina to think again about her rash plan to reunite with her child. Alone with their fears, the haunting beauty of the Scottish wilderness helps them find escape from their past pain. The comfort that only strangers can bring enables them to share a moment of hope for the future.