Window Horses

Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming is a 2016 Canadian animated feature film written and directed by Ann Marie Fleming (sometimes stylized with the title in parentheses or written as Window Horses without a subtitle), and a graphic novel by Fleming, Window Horses: The Poetic Epiphany of Rosie Ming. Funding for the film was raised through an Indiegogo campaign, which amassed more than $80,000 in 50 days, from 730 contributors in 28 countries. The film was co-produced by Fleming's Stickgirl Productions, Sandra Oh and the National Film Board of Canada. Plot Rosie Ming lives in Vancouver with Gloria and Stephen, her maternal grandparents who are of Chinese descent. Rosie's mother Caroline died in a car accident when Rosie was a child. An aspiring poet with a fixation on Paris, France, Rosie collects her poems in a book which she self-publishes. The book gets the attention of the organizers of a poetry festival in Shiraz, Iran. Though Gloria is adamantly opposed to Rosie going to Iran, she eventually relents after seeing Rosie's determination. Her grandparents pack a black chador for Rosie to wear in Iran, though Rosie soon finds many festival guests are confused by her appearance as Rosie is not a devout Muslim and women in Iran are not required by law to wear chadors. Among the poets, Rosie meets at the festival are festival cultural ambassador Mehrnaz, Chinese poet Di Di, and German poet Dietmar. At a competition early in the festival, Rosie performs one of her poems by singing it, but is scored poorly by the judges as she was unaware that a woman singing in public is considered provocative in Iran. Mehrnaz remains supportive, later on bringing Rosie to the tomb of famous Shiraz poet Hafez for inspiration. In contrast, Dietmar is relentlessly disdainful of Rosie's poetic style and hangup for Paris. However, Dietmar's satirical poem about wealthy Europeans feeding expensive food to their dogs at the dinner table is badly received, not realizing until after his performance the local audience found the premise of dogs eating at the table alongside humans to be deeply offensive. Rosie calms a panicked Dietmar with the idea of a slam, wherein both poets improvise a poem together. Their improvisation goes over well with their audience, and Dietmar reconciles with Rosie.