Old family photographs invoke memories and invite comparison to the present. Using five family photographs taken in the 1940s, RETURNING THE SHADOW considers how the meaning of these visual documents changes with our life experiences. The film's circular structure allows the viewer to contribute personal experience in an effort to identify the characters in their relationships and to reflect on one's own identity within his/her family. RETURNING THE SHADOW explores the tension between recorded and remembered past and present as it creates its own internal memory.

"RETURNING THE SHADOW is an elegant, beautiful, tender film. ... Holmes evokes the sensation of Proustian remembering through repetition and variation of carefully paced and composed images of two people looking at an apartment, fragments of old photographs, haunting shadows and gestures." - Sandra Maliga, Experimental Film Coalition Newsletter

Award: American Film and Video Festival

Exhibition: NY Experimental Film Festival; Athens Int'l Film Festival; Uppsala Film Festival, Sweden; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Cork Int'l Film Festival.