“My Family are Fish” was inspired by a chapter in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying wherein a child whose mother has passed away says, “My mother is a fish.” We wanted to make a film that addresses the strangeness of death— it's incompatibility with our understanding of the world and, through that, why it can be so hard to move on from it. Both the co-director, one of my best friends Maya, and I have experienced loss. We have dealt with grief that comes with no instructions; the guilt and isolation of moving on with our lives when someone we have loved is gone forever. Like our character Brian, we have been left with with the dilemma of honoring someone’s memory without becoming obsessed with it—without letting it take over our lives, no matter how consuming it can be. We made this film in hopes of addressing how profoundly odd and unshakable that experience is. We hope that watching Brian go through the motions of grief, holding so tightly to all he has lost, and ultimately realizing he must let go, is as validating to our viewers as it was to us.
17min 46sec
Colorado Springs, CO
2024