Filmmaker Statement

Eleanor in the Room took shape as my desire to start a family converged with a feeling of stagnation in my career. I longed for a baby, but ruminated over how becoming a mother would affect my sense of self and my art. Virginia Woolf’s "A Room of One’s Own", kept ringing through my mind. Woolf theorized that woman writers must kill the phantom force that pushes us to bend to societal expectation. And only once that phantom is good and dead, can we endeavor to tell the truth about our experience. Not only do women face societal and cultural pressures, but we also must abide biological, natural processes beyond our control. From the shock of our first period to the uncertainty of pregnancy and birth to menopause, and everything before, in between, and beyond. I wanted to make a film about the psychic and bodily challenges that life in as a woman entails. Our desires can feel at odds and even wrong but nevertheless powerful and true. My husband and I designated a baby’s room i