Hannah Takes the Stairs is an indie romantic comedy directed by Joe Swanberg. The film attracted critical acclaim following its SXSW Festival debut in March 2007. The film's later inclusion in the IFC Center program "The New Talkies: Generation DIY" prompted The New York Times to make Hannah the most recent example of "Mumblecore" cinema.

Swanberg hails from Illinois where he studied film at Southern Illinois University. Prior to making movies, Swanberg worked for the Big Muddy Film Festival and Chicago International Film Festival. Hannah is Swanberg's third feature film, after Kissing on the Mouth and LOL. He is a member of the movement known as Mumblecore and is also a proponent for internet distribution of films.

Indiewire on Swanberg.."Progressing beyond the earlier fumblings of "Kissing on the Mouth" and the more subtly developed "LOL," the director harnesses in "Hannah" the fleeting emotional frequencies of everyday interaction for which he's been striving. He does so with the help of his cast, particularly the complex and charmingly goofy Greta Gerwig as the titular hottie, a female character of a kind you don't often see in American cinema: lovely and bright but without affectation, she revels in her sexual attractiveness even as she remains self-consciously confused about the costs."

• The New York Times article on "mumblecore" brought unprecedented attention to Hannah Takes the Stairs. Director Joe Swanberg spells out his take on it in the Vulture interview. "I don't know if it's a movement. It's just that a lot of us...are working on movies that have a similar aesthetic or mind-set."

• Google News Search: Hannah Takes the Stairs

• The New York Times: "A Generation Finds Its Mumble" (August 19, 2007)

• New York Press: Hardcore Mumbling

• Filmmaker Magazine: What I Meant to Say

• Vulture (NY Magazine Blog): Ridiculously Young Director Joe Swanberg on Hannah Takes the Stairs

• New York Times reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz gives Hannah a mixed review and labels it the beginning of the end of a movement. Hannah is "...a swan song, a signpost marking the point when mumblecore became a nostalgic label rather than a present-tense cultural force, and its most acclaimed practitioners moved on to bigger things."

• The New York Times: Hannah Takes the Stairs Review

• Rotten Tomatoes: Hannah Takes the Stairs Reviews

• Salon.com: Hannah Takes the Stairs Review

• Slant Magazine: Hannah Takes the Stairs Review

• indieWIRE: Hannah Takes the Stairs Review

• You don't have to wait for Hannah Takes the Stairs to come to your town. IFC is offering the film through its On Demand service. You can find out if IFC On Demand is offered by your local cable provider by entering your zip code into the form provided on the IFC website.

• IFC in Theaters: Hannah Takes the Stairs On Demand