In this immersive meditation on elder consciousness and the act of caregiving a parent with dementia, filmmaker Rea Tajiri centers her mother’s storytelling wisdom as the dream fabric for this film. Rose’s renditions of popular songs of her era provide the soundtrack for time travel as we witness her evolution across nine decades of living. A delicate weave between past and present, parenting and being parented, the reliability of memory and the desire to reinvent one's own life when you can't remember - are reflected upon in this tender and humorous film about aging, loss, mortality and transformation.

More Info.

Director - Rea Tajiri

The film offers a different story about aging, and about living with dementia, rather than centering a disease, the film centers her perspective, in its form and its content, telling the story of a life to be valued, rather than a problem to be willed away. While the urgency around dementia is real, a societal shift in how we view it is necessary—one that honors subjective experience, cultural difference, inclusivity, and personhood. What is often reflected in the public dialogues of dementia is the devaluing of age and a dismissal of the knowledge we can gain from interacting with someone who has lived a long life, one whose experiences may now be shared through a different lens and perhaps a new language, a wisdom gone wild.

What I hope for is to draw audiences to the possibilities of connection and intimacy with loved ones who live with dementia. With this intimate portrayal, I hope to normalize witnessing and listening to elders, and to value their stories, their wisdom and their lived experience.