HAPPY BIRTHDAY

A short video shows the maker filming her mother in bed through the screen of a baby monitor. The video marks a shared milestone: the mother’s 60th birthday and the maker’s 30th. It begins with the maker asking about her mother’s experience of wishing for a child, which develops into a conversation about how the maker was actually an unwanted child. Her mother admits that she sometimes wonders whether the maker’s depressive tendencies stem from having been unwanted. What does it mean to exist when one was never meant to?

The film finds the maker in moments of reflection during a period of life in which she struggles to claim space for herself. By watching and listening to her mother through the baby monitor, the maker gives her mother attention and a sense of safety, even as the screen creates a subtle distance. The baby monitor is both a tool of care and a form of control, a way to hold onto what is fragile. Her mother shares her doubts and reflections on why the maker was unwanted.

Through the baby monitor, the film captures the delicate tension between being present and feeling apart, quietly echoing the maker’s own beginnings.

The film lingers on fragile, reversed moments between parent and child, where seeing and being seen opens a space for reflection, understanding, and a tentative, imperfect form of healing.