Q&A: A Conversation With Filmmaker Nisha Platzer on Documentary Debut ‘back home’
A FIVE-YEAR JOURNEY — of getting to know her older brother Josh, who took his life at age 15, resulted in Nisha Platzer’s documentary feature debut, back home. The film comes 20 years after Josh’s passing and reconnects Platzer with anecdotes about who he was, the mementos he kept as a teenager, and the people he spent most of his time with. Platzer revisits her home city of Vancouver, Canada to trace Josh’s life and impact.
The film is handmade — it includes abstract celluloid images, sections filmed on 16mm and Super 8, and a variety of manual techniques, including burying some of the film in the earth with Josh’s ashes. It is reminiscent of Naomi Kawase’s (Katatsumori, Embracing, Sweet Bean) introspection through the use of childhood objects and the uncovering of family history. Through such intimacy, back home prompts viewers to consider their own experiences.
“My wish with the film,” Platzer says, “is that it goes beyond my story and calls upon the viewer to see their own experiences reflected within its layers.”
In addition to her own memories of Josh, Platzer revisits his childhood friends. Sam, Josh’s best friend, recalls the night of his passing and the unique bond that united them in Josh’s teenage years. Sam and his family were Josh’s found family, a group of trusted allies that he wrote about in his journal.
“The friends were good,” Josh wrote. “I can’t wait to see you all when you decide to come. I’m sure you’ll do a lot of good here, though, much more than me. You’ll make many people happy as you have done for me. Thank you.”
In the film, Platzer describes the original reason for returning to Vancouver: a pain in her feet, a condition that resulted in her reconnection with Swan, Sam’s mother. Almost miraculously, Swan was recommended as the only practitioner in Vancouver who would be able to treat Platzer. Something about back home is entirely inevitable.
The film was screened at Montréal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) on Nov. 20 and 23 and was invited as a selection in the RIDM New Visions Competition. It had its world premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival and was also selected for the Cannes Docs-in-Progress Canadian Showcase.
Read below as Platzer discusses back home’s screenings, the role of community in the film, and its handmade qualities.
LUNA: How was the documentary festival?
PLATZER: We’ve shown it in two festivals — we [first] showed it at Vancouver International Film Festival. That was, of course, the hometown, and all my family and all of Josh’s friends [were there] so it was very loaded emotionally for me. It was more than just a film premiere. Obviously it’s like, yes, I’ve been working on this for six years and there was all of that. But on top of that, the wanting to take care of people was pretty exhausting. Doing the festival in Montréal was a nice departure from that because I could just be a filmmaker, you know? Both were really special. I lived in Montréal as well, so I have a lot of friends [there]. It was pretty lovely to be able to show it there as well.
LUNA: I read that you spent a lot of your formative years in Montréal, so getting to bring your film and returning to the city is pretty special. It seems like a lot of this film is about returning. I mean, it is called back home. So it’s kind of funny that it worked out that way with Montréal as well.
PLATZER: It felt really right to premiere the film in Vancouver and then to have the next showing in Montréal. Definitely fit quite perfectly.
LUNA: In the film, you tell Swan, “Being around you would be like being around him.” Your father also explains the neighbors who came together to support your parents by establishing a roster of who would check up on them every day. Strangely, loss can sometimes lead us to connection with others because of the collective pain that is felt. Can you speak on the central role of community in back home?
PLATZER: This is such a heartening question. I’m really glad that you took that away [and] that community and collective healing felt like a central theme for you because that was an intention from very early on, to highlight the beauty and community that existed alongside all of the pain. There was this celebration of [Josh] and [a] tremendous amount of love. Even to this day, 23 years later, [there are] these incredibly vivid memories that people have of this kid who was so fiercely loved. I think that Josh’s friends were young, and they were so rocked by it, but maybe there’s a bit more of a permission for young people to grieve in a different way. They didn’t just stay in the darkness, they played music together for weeks. Nobody wanted to leave, no one wanted to have that separation. I think that was very healthy, to be together laughing, crying, drawing. I was younger — I was 11. They were all teenagers, which, in that time of your life, those are different worlds. And I guess for me, because Josh was my only sibling and I was more with all the adults, it was a really lonely time for me. I think it was apparent to me even then that there was a medicine in the collective healing, and that’s what this film explores. How could it have been different if I hadn’t been isolated? How are these other people finding ways to live through it in a way that was less painful, more nurturing or nourishing?
Grief is so layered and complex, and it is different for everybody. Some people say you can’t share grief. I don’t totally agree with that, but even if I did I think you could have your different experiences but still be living it alongside others. So this film is in large part remedying that sense of aloneness. My parents also had this beautiful community surrounding them, coming in and just leaving meals and dropping in, and other people who played a parenting role for me. [They] would take me out of that environment in that house that was so full of grief and take me to whatever, for a walk or out to do something fun. So yeah, a lot of people who really helped us get through that time. I think that’s essential.
LUNA: It’s funny how community does have a way of just coming together naturally. I was so shocked when you were told that Swan was the only practitioner who could treat you in Vancouver. So it’s like that community was just meant to come together again.
PLATZER: Yeah, oh, absolutely. I didn’t have a choice, you know, like the universe was pushing me in the direction of these people. The film was really like a series of synchronicities that came together. That is why it happened. It wasn’t supposed to be a film.
LUNA: In addition to a journey of learning more about Josh, this film is also an ode to cinema. It is experimental and immersive in the process of creating it, which you actually show in the film. That was so interesting to me. Why was it important to you to show this process so clearly?
PLATZER: Thank you for saying that — that’s a really huge compliment. It was definitely fundamental to include the handmade film process, darkroom processes, in a film about grief because learning photography when I was a high school student was really central to my own grief journey. I was a teenager and I was just starting to come to terms with everything that had happened and this new family situation that felt like there was just a piece [missing], an empty seat at the table, like an arm that had been cut off from all of us. As I was moving through that, I was in high school learning photography. I’m an introvert so it’s natural for me to spend a lot of time alone, but I think this was a healthy way to be alone. I mean, there’s such a magic in film and I was so inspired — I would just spend all my free time after school in the dark room. It was really peaceful and nourishing for me. So that was sort of the reason to bring it in. Not that I really was conscious of it at the very start, but it was natural to do that.
But also I was very certain about how I didn’t want to make a heavy film. I didn't want people to walk out feeling sad and traumatized. I wanted to really take care of the audience and to do that, I felt that we needed to have a kind of gentle pace. So those moments of handmade images kind of come in and out in between the scenes that are more dialogue-heavy or conversation-heavy, where we’re learning some of the more traumatic parts of what happened, then I wanted to make sure that we had time to breathe. And it would be like, “Okay, I can just, like, listen to this music and watch these abstract images of light and texture and not have to process more information.”
The other part that became really important to the visual aspect was the 16mm and the Super 8 sections that are developed using natural elements. Josh had written about his wishes of how he wanted his ashes scattered and I decided to incorporate those places into the film. There are parts that are immersed in seawater and seaweed. There are parts of the film stock I developed with a plant developer with plants I collected from the local mountains. [Cypress Mountain] was an important place to Josh and I went and collected plants and made a film developer out of it. Other parts I buried in the soil near where the train tracks used to be. Those were ideas that came in development or as we were shooting the film. I was sort of coming to think about how I could incorporate those symbols in a really direct way. Then much later in the process, the idea of using Josh’s ashes emerged, and I decided to try that and see what would happen. It was kind of a very connected and spiritual part of making this film for me, being alone in the studio with a candle, and I was like talking with him. It felt like hanging out with him while I actually used his ashes on the celluloid, then come back and see what effect it had. It ended up creating an orange glow at some parts that you might have noticed, and that was the effect of the ashes on the film. It felt really meaningful to be connected with him in that way and having him physically in the material of the film.
LUNA: Thank you for sharing that. It all came out very beautiful. You mentioned that it all felt very natural that you didn’t exactly decide to do that, and that’s exactly what I got as a viewer. It just feels natural, and you mentioned that it’s like this space for breathing. I imagine that sort of mirrored your actual journey as well with creating the film. You mentioned it was six years of making the film, but then you have these quiet moments [of creation] and the audience kind of gets to feel that with you. Speaking of the handmade qualities, hands are a central image throughout the film: flipping through Josh’s favorite book, The Catcher in the Rye, holding photographs of him, Swan holding your hand. The film itself can be described as handmade due to the techniques you used. The effect that all of this has on the viewer is that the film becomes somehow familiar. I know for me, it didn’t feel like I was stepping into someone else’s story. It felt completely familiar because of this. What are you hoping audiences take with them at the end of their viewing?
PLATZER: Yeah, it’s so cool that you really saw hands as a central image because I think feet comes up as the obvious image for a lot of folks, but it’s true. I did do a lot of close shots on faces and on hands. Throughout filming, I would be like, let’s go to their hands! Hands are part of every moment of our day. There’s something very intimate about our hands. We hold, we touch, and that closeness … I think they express so much. But obviously, it ties into the tactile quality of the film, as you said, and the sense of closeness was something I hoped people would feel whether they knew me or my family or not; that they could feel like they got to know Josh the way that I did through making the film. It was really important to me that people would walk out feeling well and cleansed in a way and have that sense of healing or having witnessed a process of healing. A lot of the feedback that I’ve received from audiences is that they’re surprised to leave with a kind of levity that they didn’t expect. [That’s] really what I had hoped because it is a film about healing and connection. Love and connection are really central to this film. So I’m glad that came through for you.
LUNA: It definitely did. We were talking a bit about Montréal and us both being from Vancouver. You’ve lived, worked, and studied in Vancouver, Montréal, and Cuba. Each country and city has diverse stories that make it up. What patterns do you notice in places around the world as a storyteller?
PLATZER: It’s true — I have been very fortunate to live and spend time in other places. That’s a very large question, but I guess as humans we want to share our experiences with others. I think that’s something that we all know to be true, [wanting] to be witnessed and to share. I think for me it’s much more about experiences than about a story. I have a bit of a hard time with the word “story.” The word “story” has a connotation of a certain formula that I don’t identify with or relate to in life or in art-making. [It has] this beginning, middle, end format that I don’t think is true. We don’t live like that. Life comes in moments and it’s like a collection of moments more than it is about a story with a beginning and end.
Living in Montréal and living in Cuba, I got to witness and experience really different ways of life and how people manage in different circumstances, [like] living through six months of winter every year and how that creates an incredibly creative culture. It’s amazing. People stay inside doing nothing in Vancouver much more than they do in Montréal. In Montréal, it’s like, “Yeah, it’s minus-20 and we’re out and we’re partying and we’re going to the theater and we’re dancing!” So maybe that’s a reaction to it — like, we won’t stay inside, we will go out and celebrate life. Then in Cuba, of course, it’s such a place of scarcity and people not only make do but they make really rich lives for themselves with so little. I mean, I could go on and on about how amazing the ingenuity and ability to improvise is among people in Cuba. They face such adversity and yet people are living really wonderful lives and have such beautiful ways of celebrating their relationships.
I guess both of those places provided new life experiences, and also Montréal was a big part of my development as an artist. Cuba was a place where I [became] closest with Sara, who was such a dear friend to Josh, and it was very early in the process that I think I had just started the film when I decided to go to school there, and there was so much support and encouragement from mentors and teachers. I was really fortunate. A lot of the 16mm parts of the film were shot and developed in the laboratory [of] the school, Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión. And one of our DPs, Flávio Rebouças, we met each other [at the school] and connected. He had also lost a brother and there was that immediate closeness. Some of the most beautiful images were things that we made together there.
LUNA: How do you feel about Vancouver since the making of this film? Has it changed your relationship to the city?
PLATZER: You mentioned earlier about returning and how that tied into the title for you. It’s funny, the title also was unintentional. It was when I was facing the fact that I was gonna have to leave Montréal because of my health issues. I really didn’t want to leave Montréal. I think just for my own mental health, I was trying to find some kind of creative project that I might do in Vancouver. I was scribbling notes like “back home” as a header on my notepad, like things I’m going to do back home. And it was, I don't know, maybe a photo essay about places in Vancouver that have changed and what they mean to me and kind of before and after it. If you grew up here, you know how drastically the city has changed. I would come back maybe twice a year from Montréal and entire city blocks were gone or redeveloped. I think that it’s always been a complicated relationship with this place because so much tragedy happened here for our family. It took a long time for me to find what I love about it. I think that places can hold so much intensity. You go to a place and you can feel all of the emotion come back in an instant. Whether that’s a school or a house or somewhere outside that you’ve been to where something happened. All of that just comes rushing back. Sometimes that’s too intense and I need to distance myself from it. I think that the connections I feel with people in Montréal and Cuba, they don’t have the same heaviness that Vancouver holds.
LUNA: One thing I find myself thinking a lot about is how we leave these little traces of ourselves in places. You see something that was done by someone and you don’t know where they are now. So [that’s] another thing that this film made me think about, probably because I have that personal connection with the city. Some of the places that you went to in the film, or the scattering of Josh’s ashes, I just thought about how we leave those traces of us. So thank you for initiating these sort of thought processes and allowing even me to see something different in the city I’ve been in my whole life.
CONNECT WITH NISHA PLATZER
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