LOVE & STUFF
Grieving her beloved mother and living amidst 63 boxes of dead parents’ stuff, one transformative “YES” turns filmmaker Judith Helfand into a 50-year-old new mother

LOVE & STUFF

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Women's Studies • Sociology • Caregiving • Death, Dying, and Grieving • Jewish Studies • Mental Health • First-Person Filmmaking • First-Person Memoir and Storytelling • Documentary Production • American Studies • Parenting

Date of Completion: 2020 | Run Time: 78 minutes​​ | Language: English with English & Hebrew subtitles | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript | Director: Judith Helfand | Co-Director: David Cohen | Producers: Judith Helfand, Hilla Medalia & Julie Benello | Executive Producers: Regina K. Scully, Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Dan Cogan, Megan Gelstein, Susan Margolin, Sarah Cavanaugh, Nancy Blachman | Editors: Marina Katz & David Cohen | Director of Photography: Daniel Gold | Music: Paul Brill | Narration Writer: Judith Helfand & David Cohen | Supervising Sound Editor and Re-Recording Mixer: Benny Mouthon, CAS | Colorist: Joseph Mastantuono

Seven months after helping her terminally ill mother have a “good death” in home-hospice, filmmaker Judith Helfand becomes a “new old” single mother at 50. Overnight, she’s pushed to deal with her stuff: 63 boxes of her parent’s heirlooms overwhelming her office-turned-future-baby’s room, the weight her mother had begged her to lose, and the reality of being a half century older than her daughter. Told in the first person, in deep consultation with the past – as in 25 years of family footage – LOVE & STUFF explores the transformative power of parenting, our complex and very emotional attachment to stuff, and what it is we really need to leave our children.

In LOVE & STUFF, Helfand continues the journey she began two decades ago with her seminal film HEALTHY BABY GIRL (Sundance; POV; Peabody 1997), which was followed by the 2002 Sundance award-winning sequel BLUE VINYL and the short epilogue EK VELT (2004). Through these films Helfand established a voice that is deeply personal, darkly funny and ultimately reflects the universal power of love and family.