Help me make my first film!

An elderly woman is struggling on her 88th birthday, in isolation alone. To help her through, she reminisces on a lifetime of memory through archive photographs that come alive.

This film aims to take a look at the realities of the hyper vulnerable, during 2020’s Pandemic era.

Through the protagonists eyes, we explore the emotional struggle of rounding out ones life in our now altered reality, and how the circumstances exacerbate the loneliness of this already lonely generation.

Hi there, my name is Miah and I'm here to get funding for my first short film 'Eighty-Eight'.

The idea for my film was sparked during a conversation with my partner's elderly grandmother. I was in the midst of mindlessly complaining about the boredom and nothingness of lockdown; when she said something that stopped me in my tracks. While sympathetic, she exclaimed that while I was in the beginning of my life, she was at the very end of hers. She was right, and it shook me to my core. How could my alcohol and jovial activity filled lockdown with family, even remotely compare to her solitary one- at 80 something years old, knowing it's nearly the end?

This conversation deeply troubled me. Nights of lying awake thinking about how sorry I was that anyone should have to confront something as taxing and emotional as a global pandemic, on their own. Let alone during the golden years, when loved ones and relatives have established lives of their own, or worse, have passed over. The empathy I felt, triggered my need for a wider conversation around this, which led me to Eileen.

We meet Eileen in the height of Lockdown, where she lives alone in her assisted living apartment. What we don’t know is that it’s her 88th birthday, an astounding milestone. We see her grapple with the weight of the circumstances, and try to seek comfort in an old photo album. It’s an opportunity to reminisce, and an attempt to remedy her loneliness. She is subsequently visited by her childhood dog, her passed husband, and in the end her daughter who has shown up to celebrate with Eileen (from outside her window); finally convincing the 88 year old, there is a lot worth celebrating.

Conversation turned obsession, my research led me to various scholarly articles, dissertations, reputable data and other elderly persons who experienced lockdown alone. What I didn’t initially assume, and what virtually all my research alluded to, was this innate resilience of societies oldest. One lady I spoke to said “when you’ve lived a lifetime of curveballs, you become a really good batter.” This encouraged me to steer away from painting the stereotypical picture of a doddering and depressed pensioner wallowing in self pity. Instead, I want to humanise and celebrate the individuality of Eileen; not as an elderly woman in lockdown, but as a person struggling like the rest of us.

I intend to take the audience on a similar journey to the one I went on myself.

I want to turn blind empathy for our elderly, into a feeling of hopefulness and respect for the lifetime lived. Eighty-Eight is my simultaneous love letter, and offer of redemption to our most special, and fastest growing demographic- so often overlooked.

Funding will go toward paying Actors according to the MEAA union rates, location rentals, insurances, and around 15 million other costs associated with making an independent film!

I understand this is not really an investment, but more of a donation. Anything helps and is so greatly appreciated.

Thank you so very much, particularly if you have read all of this.

Miah x