It’s daylight, and a household is racing from their dwelling with their toddler little one, uncertain in the event that they’ll ever be capable to come again.
That scene is the climax to “Didn’t Die,” an indie zombie movie premiering within the Midnight part at Sundance, however it’s additionally the truth that director Meera Menon, cinematographer and author Paul Gleason (and Menon’s husband), and producer Erica Fishman needed to cope with earlier this month as they fled their Altadena properties because of the Eaton Fireplace in Los Angeles.
“Didn’t Die” is a movie about dealing with tragedy, determining find out how to cross the time, endure, and most of all stay, not simply survive, within the face of an apocalypse. Within the weeks main as much as the pageant, the “Didn’t Die” filmmakers have been doing simply that. Every of their properties had been utterly burned down within the fires, each Menon and Gleason’s on the east facet of Altadena close to Eaton Canyon, in addition to Fishman’s on the west facet of city 4 miles away from the place the fires started.
In an much more surreal twist, the child that seems within the movie is Menon and Gleason’s precise daughter. And the house the place a number of scenes of “Didn’t Die” was shot is identical Altadena dwelling that’s now misplaced. The photographs seen of it within the film, together with a number of which are staged as black and white, 8mm, childhood dwelling films earlier than the zombie apocalypse started, are among the final data they’ve of their dwelling.
“The 8mm footage, which is meant to emulate a reminiscence, is now, in actual fact, a reminiscence of one thing that’s misplaced,” Gleason informed IndieWire. “The degrees of strangeness and unusual serendipity are laborious to articulate, and doubtless one thing we’ll be processing for some time.”
IndieWire spoke with Menon, Gleason, and Fishman over Zoom, with Menon carrying a USC sweatshirt that had been donated as a part of fireplace aid. Every week earlier than the fires started on January 7, the staff, together with editor and Fishman’s companion Geoff Boothby, had delivered a remaining DCP to Sundance. Every week eliminated, they had been nonetheless desirous to attend the pageant (the film is on the market) and be with a supportive group of individuals. However what’s extra, the movie affords some bittersweet solace.
“All 4 of us had been nervous about it, however I truly discovered it to be comforting to see that it nonetheless exists on this film,” Menon stated. “As a result of the strangest a part of this complete factor is simply, it’s all gone. It feels surreal to assume all of these things, not simply our dwelling, a complete group’s value of properties, simply gone. So it’s one thing comforting to see that it did exist. It wasn’t only a dream.”
The Eaton Fireplace began nearly actually in Menon and Gleason’s yard, seen to them earlier than it was all around the information. Menon and Gleason evacuated to Fishman’s home on the opposite facet of city. They stayed a few days earlier than relocating once more to El Segundo, however it was at that time that Fishman realized she wanted to depart too. She packed just a few issues, took her cat and canine, and went to a home in North Hollywood after a buddy texted her to “Simply come over. Don’t be silly.”
“Very a lot within the spirit of the film, we simply confirmed up in the lounge like, ‘Hey, can we sleep right here? Now we now have this little one,” Fishman stated. “These varieties of issues really feel actually unusual and so eerily just like the movie.”
The recollections Gleason and Menon have from the day of the fireplace are themselves cinematic. As an example simply how shut they had been to the hazard, one exterior shot within the movie from their garden has Eaton Canyon within the background.
“We had simply walked within the canyon with our daughter earlier. It was an attractive day. The winds had been chilly, and the air was heat, and we took among the most lovely photos and had an unimaginable reminiscence,” Gleason stated. “And I used to be within the storage the place we had filmed a variety of these items, and rapidly we didn’t have energy, and the door abruptly opened. Meera’s with our daughter, Lakshmi, and she or he’s like, ‘The canyon’s on fireplace,’ and the cognitive disconnect there. I checked out it and it was simply, oh no, we now have to depart now. There’s no time to assume. So we simply threw our canine and our daughter into our automobile and drove.”
“We didn’t even know the place we had been going to go after we pulled out of the driveway. That’s how briskly we had been shifting,” Menon added.
The excellent news is, everybody was protected, from their pets to their youngsters. But in addition the laborious drives for “Didn’t Die,” unusually one among their final possessions. Earlier than they got here to Park Metropolis, they took time to go to the remnants of their properties, donning painter fits and masks to sift via what’s left and to have the ability to get only a little bit of closure.
The movie’s premiere ought to present one other dose of closure. Inside 48 hours, each pairs of children had been clothed with bins of outfits, Sundance had been asking them for his or her sizes to reward them further garments, and so they joked the one factor they actually wanted was a time machine to be extra ready. Finally, the filmmakers are prepared to maneuver on to the subsequent factor.
“I feel the one factor you are able to do in these occasions is transfer ahead and put one foot in entrance of the opposite,” Menon stated. “And that is the subsequent factor we had been going to do. So we’re going to do it.”
In fact Menon hopes that audiences prefer it and that the movie finds a distributor, however Menon stated “Didn’t Die” now’s “too significant” to them to not be determining what’s subsequent for it. For them the message of the movie is that “loss is survivable,” and you’ll find that means and sweetness once more.
“We’ve unusually been simply overwhelmed with gratitude, not unhappiness,” Menon stated. “More often than not we really feel grateful, after which we now have these moments of unhappiness, however we now have a lot help, it’s laborious to not simply be buoyed by that gratitude and really feel that rather more strongly that focus and help must be directed in the direction of folks that don’t have these help networks.”
“We now have a lot to stay up for within the quick time period, and issues are going to work out okay,” Gleason added. “It’s a tragedy that’s a lot greater than this micro story that we now have to inform. And I’m grateful that we now have our associates and our household. There’s a rhyming to every part that’s occurring, and it reminds you the way fortunate you’re, and if that’s what we get to stroll away with, that’s truly an awesome reminder.”
“Didn’t Die” premieres on Tuesday, January 28 on the Sundance Movie Pageant.