Take What You Can Carry

A character study as well as a meditation on communication, creativity, and physical space, Take What You Can Carry is a picture of a young woman seen through the interiors she occupies and the company she keeps. A North American living abroad, Lilly aspires to shape an intimate and private place of her own while connecting to the world around her. When she receives a letter from home, it provides the conduit she needs to fuse her transient self with the person she’s always known herself to be.

Credits

Director and Writer

Matt Porterfield

Editor

Amanda Larson

DoP

Jenny Lou Ziegel

Sound Design

Gene Park
and
Danny Meltzer

Producers

Zsuzsanna Kiràly
and
Matt Porterfield

Technical information

USA, Germany 2015
DCP · 1 : 1.85 · 5.1 Mix ·

With

Hannah Gross
,
Jean-Christophe Folly
,
Angela Schanelec
and
Gob Squad – Sebastian Bark, Mat Hand, Tina Pfurr, Sharon Smith, Laura Tonke, Bastian Trost, Simon Will

Festivals

Berlinale – Shorts Competition
;
Art of the Real at Lincoln Center
;
IndieLisboa
;
Maryland International Film Festival
;
Melbourne International Film Festival
;
Berlinale Shorts Go Abroad – Asia and India Tour
;
La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival
;
2MORROW Zavtra International Film Festival
;
AFI Fest
;
Kurzfilmfestival Köln
;
Diálogo de Cinema International Film Festival
and
Berlin Art Film Festival

Distributors

Arsenal, Institut für Film und Videokunst
,
Stadtkino Verleih
and
Grasshopper Film

Bio/Filmo Matt Porterfield

Matt Porterfield has written and directed three feature films, Hamilton (2006), Putty Hill (2011) and I Used To Be Darker (2013), all produced in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was born and raised. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Harvard Film Archive and has screened at the Whitney Biennial, Walker Arts Center, Centre Pompidou, and film festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, and the Berlinale (Forum, 2010 & 2013). Matt taught film theory and production at Johns Hopkins University and Maryland Institute College of Art until 2021.

  • Cuatro Paredes, short film (2021)
  • Sollers Point, feature film (2017)
  • Take What You Can Carry, short film (2015)
  • I Used To Be Darker, feature film (2014)
  • Days Are Golden Afterparty, short film (2011)
  • Putty Hill, feature film (2011)
  • Hamilton, feature film (2006)