Her Master’s Voice

Even for the most acknowledged artists there comes a time when they begin to wonder whether what they’re doing has real meaning. Imagine if your craft of choice was lending your voice to lifeless dummies! And so it was that Nina Conti was on the brink of abandoning her career when she was informed of the death of her ex-lover and mentor Ken Campbell, a legend of underground British theater. Accompanied by a monkey named Monk, her vociferous alter-ego who says all the things she would never dare utter herself, along with a few more dummies she inherited from Campbell, Nina will travel to Kentucky to attend the National Ventriloquist Convention, as well as pay a visit to the Vent Haven Museum, where hundreds of lone puppets rest in peace after their owners expire. In this lovably paranoid DIY debut, top-tier ventriloquist and comedian Nina Conti points the camera at herself in an unexpected journey of self-knowledge that will bring her face-to-face with her own past. During her painful yet hilarious sojourn, she will engage in telling conversations with her puppet friends, exposing herself emotionally and sharing experiences and ventriloquist tips with her genius (or possibly stark raving mad) colleagues. But will she manage to revindicate ventriloquism’s long lost artistic integrity? Audience Award at SXSW