We are thrilled to be receiving financial assistance from SODEC’s development program for Tara Johns’ new project. Writer-director of The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom, Tara is presently working on several projects and will now put pen to paper on ENCORE (The Ethel Stark Project).

Several years after she left town, Lily Martin walks into a Montreal nursing home to reconcile with her estranged mother, only to learn that her mother has died. Caught in the limbo of grief and guilt, and struggling with an unwanted pregnancy, Lily reaches out to the woman in the bed next to her mother’s. And Ethel Stark reaches right back, with an agenda. As former conductor and founder of Canada’s first all-female symphony, Ethel’s only wish is to perform one last time. Despite – or possibly because of – issues in her own life, Lily gets drawn in to Ethel’s impossible dream of mounting a comeback at Carnegie Hall and tries to find the surviving members of Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra. The rag-tag group of elderly women that helps Lily to resurrect Ethel’s past ends up having a powerful impact on Lily’s future.