Ann Marie Fleming has a history of making things that are uniquely her own. Her latest film, Can I Get a Witness?, which she also wrote and directed, is a good example of this. It’s an unusual story about a world that’s solved its biggest problems—climate change, poverty—by having everyone agree to die at fifty.
It’s a premise that feels both absurd and eerily familiar, a reflection of the anxieties that have been building for a long time. Fleming’s approach to this heavy subject is gentle, almost calming. She prefers to call it a “fable,” a term she says came from a conversation with Sandra Oh.
“Actually, it was Sandra Oh who suggested it,” Fleming told me. “I’d say there must be a more gentle word than ‘warning,’ but yes, it’s like asking you to suspend your disbelief. It’s a tale, so just sit back and relax.”
The film feels like a paradox, a society that’s both a utopia and a dystopia. It’s a world where people tend gardens and ride bikes, where the air is clean and the water is pure, but it comes at a very high price. Fleming said it was important to her that even with a dark story, we see how precious and beautiful our world is.
This is why the film’s pace is slow and deliberate. It’s as if no one wants to leave. She sees the film as a kind of love letter to our planet, a small reminder of how fragile and vulnerable it is. This idea came to her after a heat dome hit the area where they were filming, turning the lush green leaves “crispy.” She felt nature itself was giving notes to her movie.
Fleming came up with the idea for Can I Get a Witness? in the early 2000s, inspired by her own climate worries and local news. “A big wind blew down 10,000 trees in Stanley Park, and people were talking about king tides,” she recalled. “I started to develop this general climate anxiety.” At the same time, discussions about raising the Canada Pension Plan age made her think about what happens when an aging population outlives its resources. She found inspiration in Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” a biting satire that used dark humor to make a point.
The world eventually caught up to her idea. When she started writing, medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was not a topic. But by the time she was making the film, it had become legal in Canada. Then COVID-19 happened, forcing the world to have a conversation about what people are willing to do for each other.
Fleming’s own life also mirrored the themes. She was dealing with a lot of people passing away, making the movie less about a faraway concept and more about “anticipatory grief—for our world, for the younger generations, and for those of us who are losing people.” The film is a very emotional experience, and the emotions were so powerful on set that she scaled back on her initial plan to use a lot of animation. As she put it, “in the doing is the becoming.”
The film’s lead, Kiah, is played by Keira Jang, a newcomer to film. Fleming had a specific vision for the character. She wanted someone who was mixed race, which was important to her. She saw something in Jang that combined “toughness and vulnerability.” She also intentionally cast the two young leads without any romantic connection, aiming instead for a mentorship and friendship. Fleming believes in a collaborative process, where everyone on set brings their own perspective. She told me she wanted to show different types of families and a diverse cast to reflect her hope for the future.
This is Fleming’s second time working with Sandra Oh. Oh also co-produced her animated film Window Horses. In that film, Oh voiced Stick Girl, who Fleming created to be the opposite of how she was feeling after a car accident. For Can I Get a Witness?, Fleming said she had Oh in mind for the character of Ellie, who helped create the world order and is now approaching her own end-of-life ceremony.
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Oh was personally drawn to the project because of its meditation on death, something that aligned with her own meditation practice. “She is an extraordinary actress who disappears completely into a role,” Fleming said. “Her commitment and personal relationship to the material are palpable. Her instincts are amazing, and she’s always pushing me with her questions and choices.”
The film is deliberately slow, a stark contrast to how most of us consume media today. Fleming believes this is a good thing. She wanted to create a “nature bath” where your heartbeat slows down and you can just go on the ride. She feels this is a way to give people a chance to hear their own thoughts. She told me the high stakes of the film are delivered in a very deliberate way. She wants people to realize they have agency in their own lives. She pointed to real-world problems—jet streams moving, the Northwest Passage not freezing, wildfires costing billions of dollars—as evidence that we can’t afford not to try and change things.
“This film is meant to give people the space to think that they have agency,” she said. “I wanted to give people hope, even though it seems dark. I think this is a hopeful film. It gives you space to think, but your own thoughts, not mine.”
