Broken Bird tackles childhood trauma, high tension, and taking what you’ve been denied.

It’s not easy being a poet. Constantly misunderstood, guffawed, challenged. But for Sybil its much, much more.

Based on the short story by Tracy Sheals, the directorial debut of Joanne Mitchell is anything but green. Its sinister, tense and macabre: a match made in heaven.

We begin with a taxidermized bird being pieced back together by delicate hands, and eyeball here, belly stuffing there. Cut to Sybil Chamberlain (Rebecca Calder) reading a poem of deep meaning, if only to her, in a local pub. It drags and wanes, prompting the audience to applaud. Too early…she ain’t finished. With a flourish she ends her performance, with a loving and enthusiastic man in the audience showing praise and pride; her long dead father (Paul Kampf), from the afterlife, seeking to comfort his daughter, the only survivor from the car crash that killed her family.

Sybil is the quirky outsider to a life full of wants and desires being fulfilled. She’s gotten the short end of the stick and she’s reached the end of her rope. During a short stroll through a museum, Sybil catches the eye of curator Mark (Jay Taylor). There’s an instant attraction and a blissful daydream before it all settles back into the day to day, but there’s no mistaking the spark.

Mr. Thomas (James Fleet) lays atop an embalming table looking bereft and exhausted, running a funeral home as a party of one is no happy situation and he seeks to find an assistant immediately with Sybil answering the call.

Police Officer Emma (Sacharissa Claxton) looks disheveled, distracted and annoyed. Her appearance attracts the eye of her supervisor. It’s clear she’s in the aftermath of her child going missing and the return to any normalcy is disjointed and painful. She can feel him, still see him around her home, prompting necessary “time off”.

Sybil on the other hand is thriving at the new mortuary, impressing Mr. Thomas with her skill set. She’s given the keys to the kingdom so to speak and Sybil, eager to please, welcomes them. In a bouncing mood, she steps back into the limelight of the poetry pub and runs smack into Mark, spark still crackling in the air. To her dismay, he’s joined by his partner Tina (Robyn McHarry), smashing Sybil’s charmed almost life and colorful daydreams to pieces, and that spark soon becomes a blazing hellfire.

Sybil’s unraveling runs parallel to Emma’s as they set off on their perspective journeys to have returned to them what was stolen…by any means necessary.

Rebecca Calder delivers a heart-breaking and captivating performance as a woman consumed by loneliness and grief, navigating the parameters between reality and delusion. Director Joanne Mitchell crafts a haunting and atmospheric tale, blending elements of psychological horror, grief and emptiness. The film delves into the dark recesses of Sybil’s psyche as her desperate search for love leads her down a disturbing path. With its chilling narrative and strong performances, Broken Bird is a poignant and unsettling exploration of a tormented soul unraveling in the face of insatiable desire.