Yo (Love Is a Rebellious Bird) Spectrum © Mirabel Pictures
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About
Canadian Premiere
When her close friend Yolanda “Yo” Shea — a Swiss émigré 49 years her senior — passed away in 2013, filmmaker Anna Fitch wasn’t ready to say goodbye. To keep Yo’s memory alive, Fitch commissioned a puppet in her likeness and set to work crafting this delightful mixed-media documentary (with co-director Banker White) that would go on to win the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2026 Berlinale.
Using a series of intimate vérité-style interviews recorded with Yo during her final year, Fitch and White reimagine anecdotes from Yo’s fascinating life against a meticulously detailed one-third-scale replica of Yo’s apartment and diorama of Yo’s street in Pacific Grove, California. A splendid mélange of puppet, animal, and insect actors bring Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird) to life, aided by collage art and timelapse nature photography. Deftly visualizing the ineffable substance of grief and mortality, Fitch and White’s film is a sublime tribute to a free-spirited woman who moved through life in exuberant defiance of societal and gender norms.
Content Considerations: Illness, death, insects
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, Berlinale 2026
When her close friend Yolanda “Yo” Shea — a Swiss émigré 49 years her senior — passed away in 2013, filmmaker Anna Fitch wasn’t ready to say goodbye. To keep Yo’s memory alive, Fitch commissioned a puppet in her likeness and set to work crafting this delightful mixed-media documentary (with co-director Banker White) that would go on to win the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2026 Berlinale.
Using a series of intimate vérité-style interviews recorded with Yo during her final year, Fitch and White reimagine anecdotes from Yo’s fascinating life against a meticulously detailed one-third-scale replica of Yo’s apartment and diorama of Yo’s street in Pacific Grove, California. A splendid mélange of puppet, animal, and insect actors bring Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird) to life, aided by collage art and timelapse nature photography. Deftly visualizing the ineffable substance of grief and mortality, Fitch and White’s film is a sublime tribute to a free-spirited woman who moved through life in exuberant defiance of societal and gender norms.
Content Considerations: Illness, death, insects
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, Berlinale 2026
