Director's Note

What could be timelier after the last two years, than a story about battling grief, about feeling isolated, and feeling “crazy”? The loss of a parent hits us like no other life change. It is pro- foundly disorienting – a seismic shift in our personal universe. It makes us take stock -- not only of who that parent was in the world, but also of their legacy and how it lives on in us. What are the gifts that we inherit and what are the flaws? Are we doomed to repeat our parents’ mistakes? In Proof, we see a young woman grapple not only with grief, but also with the need to stand firmly on her own two feet af- ter devoting years of her life to caregiving. Losing a parent in her mid-twenties, when she is not yet fully formed, sets her into a tailspin. How does she move on, how can she trust in a re- lationship, when everything about her past experiences exem- plifies the risks that are at the center of human existence – the risks of failure and of loss. That journey is compounded when both she, and those she trusts, question her very sanity. But you don’t have to have struggled with that particular demon to relate to her story. Anyone who has fought to free themselves from inherited trauma, and who has battled the unmoored feel- ing of grief – whether literal or metaphorical -- will understand her story and the beauty and power in her search for the light.

Marya Mazor

Director, Proof