Synopsis:
When a single lesbian mom's only son is about to leave for college, he complicates her heartbreak and struggle to let him go by telling her he's selling marijuana to ease her financial pressure.
Writer/Director Statement:
I’ve been writing, and winning poetry prizes since I was a teenager; but, aside from making a short film in Junior High and another in college, I let go of my love for filmmaking in the service of supporting my family and myself. Psychotherapy has also been a lifelong fascination for me and I’ve been doing it professionally for 30 years. Finally, I’m bringing together my craving to express my creativity and my own painful experiences through film, with the experiences I’ve had all these years listening to other people’s intense emotions and deeply personal secrets. I see that film can be therapeutic, and I’d like to use it that way.
I also find that directing is a bit like doing therapy, in that it works for me to build relationships with the actors and motivate them to express (in this case my) feelings. I absolutely love it!
I also had the experience of my older son leaving for college last year. I felt a need to express the complicated, intense emotions of watching the child I’d carried and raised grow up and leave home. That was the inspiration for the film, though the story is fictionalized from there. My hope is that the film allows people to feel understood and normal in experiencing intense pain from separation.
