Filmmaker Statement

This film is a true story that my mom and grandmother would tell almost beat-for-beat for most of my childhood. Growing up in the 90s on a family compound in rural Oregon, religiously homeschooled, I spent a great deal of time with my family, so when I left to go to a public university and entered the world, I found that a lot of my sensory impressions of childhood were intimately intertwined with my mothers. What she felt, I felt. What she experienced, I experienced. There was little to no distinction in my experience, even though, very obviously, there was a huge gulf of time, space, and actual lived experience. In making this film, I wanted to capture the storybook-like quality that I experienced when hearing this story as a child while also allowing my mom's childhood experience to be played out in the doll-like manner she told it, as an unprocessed traumatic fairytale, warning others to believe their children and to stay close.