I started filming my mother’s last months living with or dying from dementia. I hadn’t planned to do it but when the doctor told me she only had a few months to live, I felt compelled to film and photograph her because I was losing her forever.
I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to document the misery and heartache of dementia and I did not want mum to be remembered that way. Instead, I documented her at her most childlike state, the happy smiling wide eyed woman she’d become. At the same time, there were still traces of her character, her strong determination, her will and her cheeky sense of humor. And I documented that.
I was so difficult caring for my mum for those eleven months I lived with her and when I became her mother. She died last August and I have edited photographs and a contemporary art video of the project but the actual film will take a while. I haven’t even begun to look at the hundreds of videos and films of my mum but I am about to begin. And I decided to go through the process bit by bit, video by video, film by film, and blog about it and release footage on a weekly basis. I hope this will help me in the editing process in putting it all together. There is more to shoot in Los Angeles and Liverpool but I have enough to be going on at the moment. I am a one woman show at present -filming, editing, producing, directing. I am applying for finishing funds. Life gets in the way or I’d be working on this full time if I had the funds to do so. Such is the creative life.
