Director’s Statement

In summer 2013, my family, led by our mother, decided to stop her treatment for terminal colon cancer. I started writing and posting about helping her “live a good death” on Facebook, with the heading: “From the frontlines of ‘Chez Helfand Hospice.’” That summer, somewhere between the morphine pills and the ice chips, my dark humor came rushing back, as if on call to help us connect, cope, and laugh our way through what would be an all-too-soon, and  inevitable goodbye. And, on the other side of the transom, I often found between 75 and 100 responses to a post, transforming my Facebook page into a semi-public primer for how to talk about death and have fun with your dying mother. In return for access to what is usually a very solitary and private process, I received a great deal of love, community, and the realization that my voice and tone was hitting a critical nerve for a very large audience of current and future motherless children.

This experience inspired me to pick up my camera and start filming what would eventually become “Love & Stuff”–first a 10-minute New York Times Op-Doc and now this feature film. 

In LOVE & STUFF, I engage head and heart on, with some of our society’s  greatest taboos and hard-to-talk about issues: end of life decisions, death,the complexities of actually “having it all” as an older, middle-class, middle-age parent, and (dare I say it) being fat,   To do this, as a woman filmmaker, right now, is radical.

To challenge myself as a storyteller, and follow the call of this story, is downright thrilling. 

While we had all expected the film to be fully released in 2020, Love & Stuff is arriving at what might just be the perfect and most timely moment, one that is very tender and, grief-driven. Covid has not only robbed millions of people the chance to hold their beloved family members at the end of their life but also the community-driven mourning rituals they so badly need. 

Zoom funerals, shivas, wakes or Hindu shraddha ceremonies, no matter how well attended, cannot replace the  intense need we have to gather, in the warmth and familiarity of a family home or house of worship, and grieve in community, face to face and heart to heart. I, along with my team and POV, are humbled to have the chance to bring this film to the world now. 

I used a bold, first-person approach with my first personal film, “A Healthy Baby Girl” (Sundance, “P.O.V.”, Peabody 1997) and built directly upon that story with my 2002 Sundance award-winning sequel “Blue Vinyl.” I did it again with the short epilogue “Ek Velt” (2004). Crafting these films taught me about the power of dark humor, authentic irony, and an honest, self-deprecating tone. Audiences were thrilled to watch a gutsy, relatable woman tackle very serious issues with humor, warmth, and a transparency that allowed viewers into the filmmaking process. Then I took a long break from making films that were personal. 

In summer 2013, my family, led by our mother, decided to stop her treatment for terminal colon cancer. I started writing and posting about helping her “live a good death” on Facebook, with the heading: “From the frontlines of ‘Chez Helfand Hospice.’” That summer, somewhere between the morphine pills and the ice chips, my dark humor came rushing back, as if on call to help us connect, cope, and laugh our way through what would be an all-too-soon, and  inevitable goodbye. And, on the other side of the transom, I often found between 75 and 100 responses to a post, transforming my Facebook page into a semi-public primer for how to talk about death and have fun with your dying mother. In return for access to what is usually a very solitary and private process, I received a great deal of love, community, and the realization that my voice and tone was hitting a critical nerve for a very large audience of current and future motherless children.

This experience inspired me to pick up my camera and start filming what would eventually become “Love & Stuff”–first a 10-minute New York Times Op-Doc and now this feature film. 

In LOVE & STUFF, I engage head and heart on, with some of our society’s  greatest taboos and hard-to-talk about issues: end of life decisions, death,the complexities of actually “having it all” as an older, middle-class, middle-age parent, and (dare I say it) being fat,   To do this, as a woman filmmaker, right now, is radical.

To challenge myself as a storyteller, and follow the call of this story, is downright thrilling. 

While we had all expected the film to be fully released in 2020, Love & Stuff is arriving at what might just be the perfect and most timely moment, one that is very tender and, grief-driven. Covid has not only robbed millions of people the chance to hold their beloved family members at the end of their life but also the community-driven mourning rituals they so badly need. 

Zoom funerals, shivas, wakes or Hindu shraddha ceremonies, no matter how well attended, cannot replace the  intense need we have to gather, in the warmth and familiarity of a family home or house of worship, and grieve in community, face to face and heart to heart. I, along with my team and POV, are humbled to have the chance to bring this film to the world now. 

I used a bold, first-person approach with my first personal film, “A Healthy Baby Girl” (Sundance, “P.O.V.”, Peabody 1997) and built directly upon that story with my 2002 Sundance award-winning sequel “Blue Vinyl.” I did it again with the short epilogue “Ek Velt” (2004). Crafting these films taught me about the power of dark humor, authentic irony, and an honest, self-deprecating tone. Audiences were thrilled to watch a gutsy, relatable woman tackle very serious issues with humor, warmth, and a transparency that allowed viewers into the filmmaking process. Then I took a long break from making films that were personal. 

In summer 2013, my family, led by our mother, decided to stop her treatment for terminal colon cancer. I started writing and posting about helping her “live a good death” on Facebook, with the heading: “From the frontlines of ‘Chez Helfand Hospice.’” That summer, somewhere between the morphine pills and the ice chips, my dark humor came rushing back, as if on call to help us connect, cope, and laugh our way through what would be an all-too-soon, and  inevitable goodbye. And, on the other side of the transom, I often found between 75 and 100 responses to a post, transforming my Facebook page into a semi-public primer for how to talk about death and have fun with your dying mother. In return for access to what is usually a very solitary and private process, I received a great deal of love, community, and the realization that my voice and tone was hitting a critical nerve for a very large audience of current and future motherless children.

This experience inspired me to pick up my camera and start filming what would eventually become “Love & Stuff”–first a 10-minute New York Times Op-Doc and now this feature film. 

In LOVE & STUFF, I engage head and heart on, with some of our society’s  greatest taboos and hard-to-talk about issues: end of life decisions, death,the complexities of actually “having it all” as an older, middle-class, middle-age parent, and (dare I say it) being fat,   To do this, as a woman filmmaker, right now, is radical.

To challenge myself as a storyteller, and follow the call of this story, is downright thrilling. 

While we had all expected the film to be fully released in 2020, Love & Stuff is arriving at what might just be the perfect and most timely moment, one that is very tender and, grief-driven. Covid has not only robbed millions of people the chance to hold their beloved family members at the end of their life but also the community-driven mourning rituals they so badly need. 

Zoom funerals, shivas, wakes or Hindu shraddha ceremonies, no matter how well attended, cannot replace the  intense need we have to gather, in the warmth and familiarity of a family home or house of worship, and grieve in community, face to face and heart to heart. I, along with my team and POV, are humbled to have the chance to bring this film to the world now.