Sundance’s ‘Take Me Home’ Turned a Personal Story Into an Anti-Ableist Creative Undertaking

Writer/director Liz Sargent’s “Take Me Home,” a U.S. Dramatic Competition premiere here at Sundance, strikes a particularly personal chord for the filmmaker: It’s a feature-length expansion of her 2023 Sundance proof-of-concept short of the same name, and it also stars her sister, Anna Sargent, in a groundbreaking performance as an actress with cognitive disability.

Anna plays a Korean adoptee living with disability who has to take care of both of her older, adoptive parents, one of whom dies and the other of whom is suffering memory loss. Anna reconnects with her older sister (Ali Ahn), also a Korean adoptee, and the feature version of “Take Me Home” tracks their relationship while dealing with unexpected tragedy.

The set of the movie, as Liz Sargent and her cast explained at the IndieWire Studio at Sundance, presented by Dropbox, reflected the anti-ableist aims of the movie: Anna had an acting coach [Terra Mackintosh] and professional caregiver, while accessibility was granted at every level on all sides of the camera via a grant from Caring Across Generations.

“We talk so much about accessibility as in physical accessibility, but what is cognitive accessibility?” Liz said. “Anna was number one on the call sheet, so we just were flexible about what she brought to a scene. It was, in a way, a master class in the pivot. Ali and I would talk like, what is this scene becoming, what is happening, and how can we shift the energy and still get what we need?”

Ahn added, “And building time for Anna to take breaks when needed and letting sort of guide what we were going to capture that day. The improvised structure — we had a script written where there were things I really attached to in the writing, which was just sort of a road map. We would open it up for Anna to bring what Anna felt like on that day, and also things evolved in ways we didn’t expect that were often better than what we could have predicted. The takes are sometimes 10, 15 minutes, and sometimes you’re just sucking for a really long time, and there’s nothing happen. Some of it being anti-ableist is about having the patience and faith for something to emerge in that silence.”

Anna Sargent added, “Acting was really good for me because I have an acting coach. She’s really cool. She’s really nice. She’s definitely awesome!”

Watch the full conversation with the “Take Me Home” team in the video above.

Dropbox is proud to partner with IndieWire and the Sundance Film Festival. In 2026, 68% of feature films premiering at Sundance used Dropbox during production. Dropbox helps filmmakers and creative teams find, organize, secure, and share the content that matters most to any project.