Spirits and stars are intertwined themes in this timeless coming-of-age story

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Stars and magical thinking link for eleven-year old Ella when her mother launches her last-chance medical “mission - all alone” against her leukemia. Ella's itinerant fisherman father, Walt, can't look after her so he fobs Ella off for the summer with his mother, an intimidating grandmother Ella’s never met. Ella dubs Violet von Stern's isolated adobe ranch "The House of Mud." She thinks of it too as "Broken Family Camp" and "The Good Grammar Correctional Facility."

 

Sparks fly between the steely “GM” and her strong-willed granddaughter, but the theft of a treasured rare book from the GM’s library sets events in motion that reveal secrets, betrayals, and sorrows that have shaped the family for generations.

 

Ella, like the North Star for her grown-ups, helps point the way to resolution as she draws strength from the constellation of love formed by her grandfather’s legacy, the bonds of friendship with Rosie, Miguel's daughter, and her own fighting spirit. Based on the acclaimed novel by Juliet Bell, Kepler’s Dream is a compassionate, artful family drama.  Suitable for 8+ to 108!

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Starring...

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Isabella Blake-Thomas as Ella, the 11-year old girl who must spend the summer in an other-worldly place as far from her suburban life as Kansas is from Oz. 

 

Holland Taylor as Violet Von Stern, the patrician,  steely, reluctant grandmother, who lives an eccentric life in a faraway adobe with peacocks and her Library of rare books.

            

David Hunt as Abercrombie, an oh-so-charming gentleman with a fey twinkle, and a bit of the harmless mountebank about him.

                        

Kelly Lynch as Amy, Ella's mother who must undergo the harsh journey of a stem cell transplant, aided by her friend Irene played by Kelly Hu.

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Sean Patrick Flanery as Walter, Ella's father and Amy's former husband. A fishing guide, estranged from his mother, ex-wife, and daughter, who must find his way to his Ella again and somehow reconnect with the women in his life to save another.

            

Steven Michael Quezada as Miguel, Walt’s boyhood friend, and Violet’s ranch hand. He knows a family secret that helps his daughter Rosie and Ella solve the mystery of her family’s brokenness.

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Sedge Thomson, p.g.a., producer

Nancy Schreiber, a.s.c.,

cinematographer

Mags Arnold, editor

Patrick Neil Doyle, composer

Brent Morris, line producer

Amy Glazer, director

Based on the novel Kepler's Dream by Juliet Bell

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A BOLTROPE PRODUCTION