dempsey in cate cemetary

"Opening a box of old family pictures, layering them into a collage of depression, suicide, and guilt, filmmaker Dempsey Rice tells the extremely intimate story of her mother's life and eventual suicide. Her mother Bonnie appeared to live a typical American life, for most of which she maintained the facade of perfect daughter, wife, and mother. But she battled depression her whole life. Her suicide forces her family to reflect on their shared lives through the kaleidoscope of her final action, searching for a cause that can allow them to understand and to make peace. Throughout, the filmmaker tries to rationalize an irrational act and to find a way to forgive her mother. Daughter of Suicide is a deeply moving, impressionistic documentary that shares the inner thoughts and feelings of a family's personal tragedy."

-- Mark Taylor, Frameline

Forget Me Nots (In Progress)
eye closeup
The documentary film Forget Me Nots is a visual rumination on one of the most primary functions of the human mind -- memory. The act of remembering - and forgetting - is so intrinsic to our experience that we usually don't even notice it at work. But memory not only allows us to navigate successfully through the day, on a more profound level it is also the door to our sense of identity and place in the world. If the door to memory is closed, we are lost in the world, and lost to ourselves.