Vancouver Premiere

“[A] dizzying docu-fiction … Invention proves to be nothing less than an up-to-the-minute report on the American state of mind—on the epidemic inability to distinguish fact from fiction.”

Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Tantalizing mysteries abound in Courtney Stephens’s Invention, a fiction feature by the experimental documentarian that nearly calls for scare quotes to stress the nonfictional undercurrents at work. The premise has thirtysomething protagonist Carrie drawn into the New Age orbit and dubious business affairs of her recently deceased father, a Berkshires doctor of pseudoscientific renown who has bequeathed her the patent to an FDA-recalled ​“healing device.” The slippage in make-believe arrives with the knowledge that Callie Hernandez, star and co-conceiver of this Super 16mm-shot drama, is ostensibly playing a version of herself, a prospect the movie artfully advances in uncut, audio ​“outtakes.” That the actor’s late father is the same guru-like figure appearing in the film’s archival public-access material adds a wrinkle of real-life intrigue to the conspiracies surrounding his death; it also renders Hernandez’s Locarno-winning performance, a tender braiding of bewilderment and numbing loss, all the more slippery to unravel.

“What makes Invention so remarkable is how tactfully it folds bereavement into the strange intrigue of [Hernandez’s father] Jon’s legacy.”

Saffron Maeve, Screen Slate

“Open-hearted, playful, and perceptive … Achieves its own sort of magic in seeing just how far you can test the boundaries between metafiction and explicit documentary.”

Josh Slater-Williams, IndieWire
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