MOTHER is an exploration of certain themes I am drawn to in storytelling—experiences of grief, blame and isolation. I wanted to tell a story about the complexities of being the mother of a child who commits an atrocious crime and more specifically the acute, and often never explored, experience of being the mother of a school shooter. I want the film to feel intense and claustrophobic with handheld camera movements, extreme close ups of Julie. Setting it in the bright morning light, forces the audience to live through every moment of Julie’s horror along with her. We rarely experience such tragedy from the mother’s point of view, which brings a more personal resonance to the cultural phenomena of mass shootings. By putting the viewer in the mother’s shoes for these 13 minutes, I hope to evoke empathy and broaden the dialogue we have around gun violence and mental health.