We Regret to Inform You...
2015 · 11m · Canada
Directed by Eva Colmers, Heidi Janz
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Playwright and academic Dr. Heidi Janz, who lives with significant physical disabilities, is refused government assistance because officials judge her mind too productive. Following her daily life, the film exposes the contradiction of being categorized as both disabled and too capable to qualify for support.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The premise wants to provoke — disabled woman too functional for aid — but it settles into earnest documentary beats when it could interrogate the absurdity harder; Colmers and Janz are playing it safe for a concept that demands sabotage.
A formally rigorous essay film that inherits the tradition of structural documentary and personal testimony, using Janz's own voice and presence to interrogate bureaucratic logic with the precision of a legal brief dressed as intimate portraiture.
The decision to let Janz speak in her own terms—refusing voice-over authority or pity framing—transforms what could be activist content into something architecturally elegant, where every cut around her daily routine becomes an argument.