Movies are a time machine, allowing us to revisit, reexamine, and tap into the events and sensations of the past, and in Blue Heron, the camera is a conduit for returning to a fraught childhood in search of answers, understanding, and peace.

A semi-autobiographical tale that’s as deft and delicate as it is emotionally overpowering, writer/director Sophy Romvari’s debut—screening Sept. 9 at the Toronto International Film Festival—is a subtle, self-referential wonder of a memory piece, recounting the ordeal of a 1990s family through the eyes of its youngest member, who’s destined, in the future, to seek solace via cinematic means.

Heartbreaking barely begins to describe it, although the terms masterful and transcendent also apply.

Blue Heron is a story relayed through half-glimpsed soun

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