New West-based producer plays major role in 'Until Branches Bend'

A Brow of the Hill resident is part of an extremely talented team of BC filmmakers currently in Texas for the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival—on the heels of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Tyler Hagan is a producer on Until Branches Bend, a psychological drama centred around a woman named Robin, (Grace Glowicki) a pregnant cannery worker who finds an invasive insect in a peach. Her discovery parallels with her personal struggle to seek an abortion—a topic that’s been timely, especially stateside, which Hagan says was actually a complete coincidence.

“This film [was] produced during the pandemic … with all the reproductive rights elements of the film, [we didn’t know] that would become such a hot topic in the States during the course of making it,” Hagan tells The Anchor, adding that while it’s a major part of the storyline, there’s more that the story speaks to than just access to reproductive rights.

“It plays into the larger overarching theme of the film: what happens to women in our society when they don’t do what they’re told to—by men in particular—but also just society at large,” he says.

The film is directed by Vancouver-based Sophie Jarvis, who has also been nominated for the SXSW Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award; the results of that will be announced later this month. It’s also picked up multiple nominations through the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, as well nominations at the Canadian Screen Awards. Hagan says he and Jarvis began developing the script in 2018. A little more than five years later, and he’s still stunned to see the reach that the film has had.

“The film is having a really good run and a great response. We had our first screening [Monday] night and it was super positive. It’s always so gratifying when you put in years and years of work [in], to be able to tell a story,” explains Hagan, “and when people respond to it, that makes it all worth it.”

While Hagan says he’s not very prescriptive about what people should take away from Until Branches Bend, he says there are many points of reflection tied to agriculture and Indigenous rights—to name a few.

“In the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys, where we’ve filmed, the history of that is in the late 1800s, the federal government came in and the First Nations communities were basically put onto non-productive land,” notes Hagan, adding that this is the backdrop on which the story sits.

There will be a one-night showing of Until Branches Bend at Landmark Cinemas in New Westminster happening on March 20 at 6:30pm. Purchase your tickets here.