Directed by Anita Lebeau

Logline: Alice’s Diary is a short animated film that explores caregiving, routine, aging and loss.

Synopsis: Alice, who cares for her mother and the household, logs her daily tasks in a diary. When her mother dies, there is a shift in Alice’s world, but almost immediately she resumes her routine. Displaying almost no emotion as she works, she continues her habit of recording her daily to-dos. Has a lifetime of caregiving robbed Alice of a sense of identity, or locked her into a pattern that she finds difficult to break? Is her return to routine an escape from grief or a passage through it?

Distribution Contact: WFG

More Details

RUNTIME: 7 Minutes
GENRE: Animation
PRODUCTION FORMAT: Computer Animation
LANGUAGE: English
LOCATION: Manitoba
KEYWORDS: Film/ Video Art, Music, Self, Women, Caregiving, Aging, Diary, Writing, Daily Routine, Female Relationships, Daily Routine, Women, Family, Grief/Grieving

Director's Statement: The film is inspired by my late aunt’s diary, a woman who spent most of her life caring for others, notably my grandmother.Her diary entries reflect this life of service, reading more like a dreary list of household tasks and daily events than a record of personal feelings or reflection. It is only when my grandmother dies that an entry in her diary gives the barest hint of emotion: “No more Mom. I’m all alone.” While reading this gutted me, the next line hit me just as hard: “I made my bed, swept kitchen and porch before breakfast….” That my aunt could have used this moment to expand on her feelings of loss, but didn’t, was painful to me yet understandable: perhaps she felt locked in an unbreakable routine. Or maybe, this routine is what helped her keep it together.

The animation technique is deliberately rough, giving a sense of life being messy around the edges. I wanted to represent that even in a routine and somewhat static existence, change is constant.

My project is not about my aunt specifically; instead my aim was to artistically reflect my visceral reaction to her writing – the seemingly mindless rhythm of tasks set against the shock of loss, along with unstated emotions. Also, after losing my own father, I found myself relating to the pull and promise of mundane tasks as a way to navigate a reality where everything had changed.