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IFFBoston 2025 Opening Night Film

Winner of the Festival Favorite Award, Sundance Film Festival

Q&A moderated by WBUR’s Cristela Guerra

After four previous films (PELADA, GOOD OL’ FREDA, THE CASE AGAINST 8, and ASK DR. RUTH), we are thrilled to welcome back award-winning director Ryan White to open our 22nd festival.

A poet faces the unthinkable with grace and humor, and discovers a newfound sense of purpose and joy.

Andrea Gibson is the Poet Laureate of Colorado. Coming from a rural town in Maine and (self-admittedly) not knowing all that many words, Andrea is still amazed they’ve made a career out of writing and performing poems, a career that brought spoken word from coffee houses to rock clubs.

The poetry that inspired hundreds of thousands was written as a roadmap for the person Andrea wanted to be. For most of their life, Andrea struggled with panic attacks, suicidal ideation, and a debilitating fear of illness. Then Andrea was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in their 40s and everything changed. Instead of spiraling into darkness, Andrea came out of surgery feeling lighter, their heart flung open. Shame disappeared and clarity found them. They were the person they wanted to be.

Andrea’s relationship with their partner Meg (also a poet) is transformed into a rollercoaster of regular chemotherapy infusions and blood tests that track their cancer levels. “Every three weeks,” Andrea says, “I find out I’m living, I’m dying, I’m living, I’m dying.” 

The couple scraps the narratives they wrote for their future and discover that life is best lived between the big moments of victory and despair, where the small moments come alive to be cherished. There are squirrels to feed and mourning doves to admire, a mailbox to keep fixing and lots of dancing to be done. Andrea’s journey is a testament to actively seeking joy—especially in the face of hopelessness, when joy can become our best resistance. Together with Meg, they show us there can be hilarity in our darkest moments, power in vulnerability, and a love story in our greatest fear coming true.

Aware of their prognosis, Andrea yearns for another chance to connect with a live audience. Despite concerns about their precarious health, they announce their first show since cancelling their world tour two years prior, and quickly sell out both nights for what will become their biggest and most powerful performance ever.

COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT is an invitation to love better, laugh harder, and consider how accepting mortality can plant the seeds of bliss. Andrea’s journey is not a story about dying, it’s a story about living.

All ticket holders are welcome to join us after the screening at the Opening Night Party, upstairs at the Crystal Ballroom.