Filmmaker Statement

Upon first reading Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, I was instantly intrigued by Tess's journey and enthralled by Maren Hill's storytelling. A film that has equal parts authentic comedic genius and gut-punching misfortune is not an easy feat. However, after years of what we continue to deem "unprecedented times", these are the stories I am most interested in exploring. Any slice-of-life is not strictly hilarious nor aptly depressed, but a coexistence of the two. And this duality of human existence is what I am most fascinated by. I continue to observe how complex it is to live with our emotions, and depending on how we have been raised or where we are from, those emotions live in different parts of our being. I remember being younger and losing my first Grandparent, expressing to my parents - How could you not prepare me for this pain? This complicated awful feeling that is gnawing at my insides? And I remember my Mother's answer: "No matter what any person believes happens after we leave this life, grief is a universal yet completely individual experience you cannot escape. There is no way I can prepare you, because with every person you lose in life, grief changes, and so do you." Through Tess's journey on this very specific day of receiving her Mother's ashes in the mail from her sister, she must face the grief she has most definitely been lugging around for years: perhaps not the death of her Mother, but the fact that she never felt she really had one. Combining this loaded background with Tess being hired as a paid mourner for a stranger's absurd, ridiculous, hilariously uncomfortable funeral -- where chaos most definitely ensues -- Tess will be forced to confront herself and her own grief, whether she is ready to or not. "Grief is just love with no place to go." - Jamie Anderson