Thank You, India
Three weeks ago I had no idea that I’d be in India right now but maybe it was planned all along. A last minute trip came together very quickly when I saw an opportunity to film an ending to the documentary I’ve been working on. BODIES OF WATER is about survival. It’s told through two souls and what remains after one lives and one dies.
This trip was a combination of The Alchemist and The Big Lebowski. This will be one of those weeks I’ll always remember. It felt out-of-control in all the right ways.
This film started out as a way to honor my son Charlie. I first brought him to India when he was 8. We talked about returning in 2022 but that July he died. Instead, I returned six months later with his ashes so he could be offered to the Ganges River and rest at peace.
On the first day of this trip as I was second guessing myself, I opened a book that I brought to read. I’d bought it second hand so was shocked to see the writing on the first page. “He loved his family. He loved his mother.” That was the start of a week where it seemed like everyone in India was conspiring to help Charlie’s mother (me) tell his story. And I was listening as Charlie was telling me a story, too.
I am so thankful for the dream team of India-based filmmakers Mohd Yusuf and Rajan who are masterful cinematographers. They went above and beyond to get the most beautiful shots in remote locations for the film. In three days, we drove twelve hours roundtrip in a car with five people, only two of us speaking English but we had a shared language of the heart.
On my final night in India I attended a pop-up event of @thestrangerschoir and together with seventy strangers, we became a choir. The song Dancing Queen was the perfect song for an ongoing story of living with grief. Turns out the ending I needed for the film wasn’t in India, it was with me all along. But India offered the body of water to tell it.
Thanks to every single person who helped to make BODIES OF WATER. I look forward to sharing more in the coming months.
