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May 28, 2025
My daily mantra for the better part of the last two years: it takes how long it takes. I’ve felt impatient, demoralized, excited and apathetic in equal measure. And somehow, finally, there is an end is in sight for post production. Bruce finished with the visual FX yesterday. I have some more dead pixels to clean up, Brian has some tweaks to make to the sound design and then, it really will be done – ready to show people. Ready to become a reality.
July 22, 2024
I’ve been trying to write and record a piece of narration for months now. From Oma’s perspective. I wish I had recorded her talking. Wish I’d known when she was still alive that I would never meet anyone who sounded like her again. But I wasn’t thinking about that, I was too busy avoiding myself, horrified at watching someone so horrified by growing old. I’ve been trying to imitate her accent, but it’s impossible, it sounds stupid. I can barely speak Dutch, don’t know how to imitate a native speaker’s accent in English.
I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that I could ask my aunt Ine for help. She’s a native Dutch speaker. She keeps reminding me that she’s not an actress, but, she is an interpreter and a singer and she has a powerful voice. So, I’m pivoting and doing the narration in Dutch with English subtitles. The narration hits so much harder in our mother tongue anyway. I find myself whispering the lines under my breath throughout the day. I’m getting excited about this edit again.
November 17, 2023
I’ve been working on the proof of concept edit for six months now. It’s just over 12 minutes, which is too long. I don’t have funds to pay for post production. I’m not sure how to get it shorter without starting over. I’ve been feeling stuck. The looming “edit Mother is Sick” in my planner isn’t working, it’s scaring me.
So, I put it down, take a break in the hopes that it would insidiously call me, but it doesn’t. I’m not ready to come back to it. Entangled Life is helping. So, I guess I should keep reading that. Reading about the real world that exists underground and all around makes me feel small, unimportant. In a good way. It takes how long it takes.
October 22, 2023
I have been thinking a lot about power lately. Aware that I’m terrified of mine.
A deep sense of injustice nestles into my gut at an early age. I can’t shake it, can’t escape it. It’s alive and grows. A part of me. Genocide looms over my existence. It always has. As a kid, learning about my history, hearing that word – feels like extinction. Hitler is winning, still. Yes, I am here, flesh and blood. But, two survivors create three offspring that make their own choices. The last whisper of an entire family tree – falls on me.
And I can’t. Do anything about it.
Extinction is slow. Generations-long. Life finds a way, for now. But every last root will die its own reluctant death. Not totally unaware. Vaguely awake to: things should have been different, could have been different.
Things don’t “go extinct” on their own accord – they are cornered, denied. On our planet, we are committing mass genocide. Bees. Coral reefs. Polar bears. We watch the last surviving vestiges as they face our collective extinction.
And that’s why Mother is Sick. Because nobody knows what to do. I cannot sit idly by while this echo chamber of death surrounds us all. Yes, we will all die. Yes, in the vastness of spacetime, nothing matters. We will be swallowed by a black hole or burnt to a crisp by an uncaring sun. But what matters to me is how. We will all die, yes, but not like this.
And of power: I have none and I have all. To know myself, to be myself, to notice things – that is where my power lies.
April 24, 2023
This proof of concept has several purposes – first and foremost it is a tangible representation of what I hope to encompass in the feature length film. It will serve as a resource to onboard a distributor or production company, name talent, and potential investors.
This story is how I’m exploring a lot of complicated and heavy grief – my relationship with my grandmother, and in turn my relationship with myself – our generational trauma. It’s how I’m processing my environmental doom which has been forefront in my depression and lack of action over the last couple of years.
This small scale shoot was an experiment and an audition. The stories that are being told on a mainstream scale are homogenous and they reflect the perspectives of the people telling them. I believe that there is untapped talent and depth of perspective in communities that haven’t been given access to key roles on typical film sets. My intention was to build an inclusive set that prioritized those of us who identify as femme, queer, BIPOC, neurodivergent or living with a disability.
Extremely talented crew: first assistant director Vee Hua, producers Sarah and Vasant Salcedo, associate producer Heather Garcia, associate producer Ashley Gonzales, cinematographer Kat Davila, first assistant camera/wardrobe Kelly June Mitchell, gaffer Neftali Kirkland, production designer/wardrobe Stefan Parker, props/set decorator Michiko Wild, caterer Franky Hawk, FX makeup Michelle Mai, FX supervisor Bruce Benson, generalist/FX Rich Gonzales, BTS photography by Julia Berglund and Olga Rocheeva, DIT Brandon Roberts.
Amazing cast: Lost Sister Kara Puerschner, Oma Tatiana Linardopoulou. Voice over by Ine van Dam.
Post production team: composer Chris Cullman , colorist Jordan Becke, visual FX by Bruce Benson and Vinny Ravuri, sound designer Brian Binning.
Thank you to Dave, Kandee and Kyle at Skokomish Park, Karen at Koerner Camera, Ray at Pacific Grip and Lighting, Dillanos Coffee Roasters and Olympia Food Co-op for your generous support.
March 05, 2023
It’s one of those warm drizzly nights that start to happen in early spring. We might still have another frost around the corner, but for now, I’m standing outside listening to a chorus of frogs and reflecting on the fact that they like this warm, wet as much as I do. When I’m outside, I feel a sense of community that I don’t often experience with humans. I’m in mourning though. Everything about the natural world feels precarious. And doomed. I wonder if the frogs will be here next year or the year after that. The way we are consuming the planet, I know better than to think they’ll last my lifetime.
I made my first horror film back in 2015 and the process left me too tired, depressed and defeated to try again. Film is an expensive and wasteful medium. No story has felt worth the toll it will take on Mother, or on myself. Seeing takeout containers in the trash hurts. I don’t know if any art project feels morally worth the garbage it would generate. I’ve felt trapped, my real community – the trees and frogs and birds and moles in the woods by my house – they’re dying. I don’t know what I can do to help.
Mother is Sick is an eco horror concept. It’s been a chance for me to unpack a lot of generational trauma, mourn the earth and explore a new way of filmmaking moving forward – one that prioritizes people and our Mother. I’m dedicated to having an inclusive set – one where BIPOC, queer, disabled, neurodivergent peeps can show up as our whole selves. I’m dedicated to environmental sustainability on set. I hope this proof of concept shoot will serve as a model for all of my shoots moving forward.
June 03, 2022
Before she died, I would paint my Oma’s nails. She was too embarrassed to go to the salon. Her hands were crooked and wrinkled, but her nails were far worse: deeply ridged and yellow, the thumbnail was barely hanging on at the cuticle. I would buff out the ridges, file the ends and then carefully coat each nail with her favorite Dusted Rose shade polish. Then, Oma would watch me meticulously paint my own. Over time I noticed that my pinkie nail was receding. How strange. A quick internet search revealed it was a fungus, likely transmitted by the shared nail file.
For the last three years of her life, we battled the incessant decay together. Even now, years since I last laid a finger on her, Oma’s fungus maintains an intermittent presence on my hands.
This film explores the haunting effects of epigenetic trauma, the eerie ghostliness of growing into someone who is dead and the determined persistence of nature – against all odds. Long live fungi for they unite us with our past and ensure our future.
