That's Not My Mother

My short film and some of my experience making it.....

Well, summer is officially here and if you’re anything like me (a mom of three kids, all 10 and under, or a parent of any kids at all), then your hands are most likely very full. Maybe you're lucky enough to have summer camp in the mix to help keep things going and give yourself a break. Over here, though, with the film industry still stalled, we just can’t justify the outrageous costs of most summer activities, so besides the daily swim lesson (had to make an exception here because it's basically a parenting requirement to make sure your kids don't sink), that means my children are staying home this summer….you know, to fight with their siblings and slowly unravel my sanity.

So, needless to say, my Substack newsletter, which wasn’t exactly overflowing with content to begin with, is getting pushed to the back burner for now. Not because I don’t want to write, but because it’s nearly impossible to dive into thoughtful, filmmaking-inspired topics while “MOMMY!” is being screamed from across the house… or while being treated to a never-ending play-by-play of every single move ever made in Minecraft.

I was, however, inspired to write this quick piece (and by “quick,” I mean I’ve had to stop and start this about 5,000 times while tending to urgent requests like, “Mommy, can you throw this away for me?” when there is a trash can literally inches from where he sits) after reading something

Ellis J. Sutton

shared in his newsletter a few weeks ago. He posted his latest short film, Game Night, and reminded me that while so many of us write about film here, we rarely get to actually see each other’s work.

Here’s a link to his newsletter and the film—it’s absolutely worth a watch.

It’s a sad truth that so many short films, after their festival run (which, for most of us, includes more rejections than acceptances and not necessarily because the work isn’t good), end up quietly disappearing into the depths of the internet. I say this from experience. I’ve been a programmer for a small festival, and I’ve seen firsthand just how oversaturated the market is. There are simply too many films and not enough slots, so plenty of great work gets passed over.

Once the festival run is over, most shorts go online, and that’s often where they die. Mine certainly have. I genuinely have no idea how to get people to watch them. Even good supportive friends seem to struggle with committing 15 minutes to sit down and watch. And I get it, we’re all busy. But it’s still disheartening to pour so much time, effort, and love into a project, only for it to be barely seen.

I was really excited about this post Coming Soon: A New Venue for Short Films by

Max Cea

:

What happens after you finish making a short film? Maybe you send around a Vimeo link. Maybe you host a screening at a bar. Maybe, if you’re lucky, it lands on the festival circuit. More often, it sits quietly online, gathering digital dust as you move on to the next.

Karma Masseli wants to give these films a home. The filmmaker and theater director — who was a founding member of the Fort Greene restaurant Dinner Party — is gearing up to launch Shorts Movie Theater, the first brick-and-mortar cinema in the U.S. dedicated entirely to short films. Set to open in early 2026, the non-profits arts venue wants to carve out space for a format long treated as either a stepping stone or an afterthought — despite its growing popularity online and on the festival circuit. Her hope is to create a sort of bar-theater hybrid, a venue where people can pop in for five-to-fifteen-minute films the same way they might grab a drink or see a bit of live music.

I hope more places can open like this and give short films more places to be seen.

As Ellis did, I would also like my readers to know what kind of films I am crafting, so below is my most recent short film, That’s Not My Mother.

It’s 15 minutes long so please if you have a chance check it out and let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it. After all our films are meant to be seen and how can we learn if no one shares their thoughts about them with us?

And for fun here’s some backstory on the making of it.

But I would recommend reading this next part AFTER you’ve watched it as there are spoilers.

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This film is based on a story my mom told me, it is something she shared years after my grandmother had passed. She told me that after my grandma died, she went to the funeral home where her body was being prepared. The moment she saw her, she completely freaked out. My grandma looked terrible. My mom ran out to the funeral director and yelled, “That’s not my mother!” Then she said, “Give me an hour. I’ll be back.”

She rushed home, grabbed all her makeup, found a wig, and went back to the funeral home. She did my grandmother’s makeup herself.

I remember going to view my grandma’s body, not knowing any of this had happened, and thinking how gorgeous she looked. Honestly, it was the most beautiful dead body I’d ever seen. And when I later found out that my mom had done that, it made the memory even more powerful. Looking back now in that memory of my grandmother she doesn’t just look beautiful, she feels beautiful. Emotionally beautiful.

To me, it was one of the most touching examples of a daughter trying to do one last thing for her mother. Only it wasn’t just that, you see my mother is a very controlling person, so this was her way of dealing with and controlling (seemingly) her grief as well. It was as much about her as it was about my grandmother.

I kept this touching moment tucked away in my head and in my notes, thinking I might use it in a feature someday. But then it hit me one day, it was already perfect as a short. A small, powerful moment of transcendence for someone dealing with something as complicated as grief.

Naturally all of the details in the script are based on my grandma. She smoked for years, she played cards and solitaire all the time, she had an owl necklace that she wore that I’ll never forget. I had such a specific idea of what I wanted her home and belongings to look like that I had trouble finding it anywhere. I asked everyone I knew who had living grandparents if there house would work but none of them matched the vision I needed to execute. Not only was I honoring my grandmothers memory with this location but it was also the only way that the character of the mother is communicated to the audience. It is in these details that we learn everything about her. So it had to be perfect.

This is where in filmmaking if you have enough time you should never compromise your vision.

When I couldn’t find the perfect location, I realized I’d have to recreate one, but building a set in a studio was completely out of the question budget-wise. So, I eventually convinced my husband to let me shoot in our house.

For months, I obsessively scrolled Craigslist, waiting for the right furniture to pop up, ideally free or really cheap. I made regular thrift store runs and slowly collected all the little knick-knacks that felt like my grandma. The blanket on the armchair was especially important to me, and I was so excited when I finally found it at a thrift store. Total jackpot. My garage was filled to the brim for months with an entire house. Thankfully, my husband is a very patient man.

My entire family got involved as well, many of the knick knacks came from my mother in law. She lent me all the plates she had on the walls in her kitchen. I almost didn’t even see that high up in the frame but thankfully with a suggestion from my husband and the Production Designer, Hillel Chaim Smith, one shot enabled me to do so. He knew the pain that went into getting everything in place and was just as determined to see that hard work on screen as I was.

To pull it off, we had to ship our kids off to Idaho to stay with their grandparents, which gave us just two days to completely transform our house. We fully transformed our living room, kitchen, and bedroom. It was basically a full-on set build, just inside our actual home. And one of the hardest things I’ve ever done for a film.

We barely slept for the 3 day duration of the shoot. Every spare moment was spent moving furniture and detailing the house. I was absolutely set on having wood cabinetry in the kitchen, so at around 3 a.m. the night before the shoot, my husband was still up, painstakingly covering everything in wood panel contact paper. It’s a tiny detail that barely shows on camera, but it mattered so much to me, and we somehow pulled it off. And yes it was all worth it.

The details in everything matter. As you watch something (especially if someone has given it as much thought as we did) I hope you take a moment to appreciate the little details!

Here’s before and after photos of the living room.

To be honest I find so much more character in the after photos, wish I would have kept some of it!

Now one last little production rant and lesson learned.

With every production, there’s always at least one thing that goes wrong or one massive hurdle you have to jump through. For That’s Not My Mother, it was permitting. I’ve shot many films where I did not permit and everything was fine. However, this time I got suckered into the permitting nightmare. And in Los Angeles, with a special thanks to Film LA, permitting is ridiculously expensive.

As I said, normally, I wouldn’t have bothered. But I got scared for two reasons. First, the apartment we found on Giggster was in Mar Vista, and the owner said some people get permits, some don’t. He didn’t require it, but warned that one or two productions had been shut down there before.

Then there was this amazing art gallery space that I also found on Giggster, which was great but it was tiny. We’d have to park most of our gear in a box truck outside, on La Cienega, which is a pretty major street. No private lot, so we figured blocking off that part of the street was a must. Sure, permits are expensive, but getting shut down was something we absolutely couldn’t afford.

It had been a while since I made a film, but back in the day when my film was part of the non-profit Filmmakers Alliance, we got a non-profit permit rate, which was about $700 or more cheaper. Turns out, that’s all changed. Now, you can’t just be affiliated or fiscally sponsored by a non-profit, you actually have to be shooting a PSA for a non-profit to get the discount. Also, you used to be able to alert neighbors yourself by dropping off flyers. Now, they make you pay an extra $200 or so for them to do it.

Bullshit fees piled on top of bullshit fees for something I’d have gladly handled myself, but apparently, I wasn’t allowed. Thanks a lot Film LA. And no one ever asked if I was permitted.

I made That’s Not My Mother even though I knew that shorts tend to struggle to find an audience because I have a feature script I want to direct, and I felt like I needed a more recent example of my filmmaking in order to do so. The last film I made was back in 2008, before I had kids, so, yeah, it had been awhile.

Me and Nicholas Veith my editor at Beaufort International Film Festival

I’m proud of this short. It played at a few festivals and even won Best Short Film at one of them. At one festival, though, it screened out of sync. I was mortified. My file was definitely fine, and they claimed it played correctly during QC, but there it was on the big screen, slightly out of sync. Thankfully, the film doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, so it didn’t totally ruin the experience. And it was at the Beaufort International Film Festival, which has this amazing, supportive community of seasoned film lovers. They totally got it and even with the glitch, I still heard sobs in all the right places. That alone made my heart so full.

Making a film and showing it to the world is full of challenges and setbacks and hard work. But when it truly resonates with someone, when it connects, it makes it all worth it.

I hope that you enjoyed my film. Or that you will check it out.

I also hope this will inspire everyone to post their films on here too.

I know I would love to see them all!

xoxo