85 minutes – Drama
Language: English
Release date: October 13, 2006
Canadian distributor: Reaction Releasing

Kardia tells the story of a pathologist named Hope (Mimi Kyzyk) who seeks the truth of her past. Her story begins when her heart stops. With a photograph as her only artifact, she sets out to unravel the mystery of her past, which is of course, the mystery of her life. Moving between the near-present and the past, Kardia weaves together Hope’s work in the science lab with the bittersweet tale of her childhood. As a young girl with a colourful imagination, Hope constructs an enchanting world for herself, her war pilot Dad, and her Scottish caregiver Florrie. This world is much more bearable for Hope than the reality she ultimately faces. As an adult working in a modern day laboratory, Hope explores the inner workings of the human heart, as well as its more mythical associations. The lab is also the place of a tenuous love story between two young people that Hope observes from a distance. Hope comes to understand that the heart surgery she underwent as a child has inexplicably linked her life with another – and it is the outcome of this operation that unlocks the secret of her past. Her journey is an enigmatic one that is only fully understood in its final moments, when Hope reconciles what she believes, with the truth she discovers.

Also see: Northernstars reviews Kardia.
Also see: Su Rynard talks about The Making of Kardia.