In every film, there is the story that you knew you were telling, the story the audience perceives. But there is always some other story, a secret story. It might be the result of your hidden motivations for making the film, or, instead, the result of themes that only became clear to you after you made the movie. It might be something very personal, or it might be a story you didn’t even know you were telling. What is your film’s secret story?

It seemed to me that the story was centered around an outsider, someone who lived a destructive lifestyle. And while there is something empowering about this, her consuming so much waste (in the forms of fast food, alcohol, narcotics, and smoke) also made her a victim and ultimately a slave too. Constantly getting wasted as a coping mechanism has only made her life more unwieldy. So it becomes a strange cycle where nothing is sacred. The process of bodily functions being commodified and turned into products is an example of this vicious cycle. One man’s waste is another’s treasure. I wanted to use a fantastical perversion of pregnancy to make a comment on consumer culture and our blind ability to ingest so many poisons and how even in our sickest states we could serve a higher albeit sinister purpose. It wasn’t until I finished editing that I noticed a handful of variations of that idea throughout the movie.

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 25 at 11:45pm — Egyptian Theatre]

Sundance Responses 2016