A Hidden Star - Film Festival Awards and Selections

There are two layers for transmuting our film’s meaning into the lives of our audience. The first layer is symbolic. It’s the metaphor of being knocked down and dragged under the waves and learning to accept what is, in order to discover the truths and mysteries about the meaning of life. The second layer is unique, in that it is visceral and specific to each of us. 

In our film, surfing in the waves unexpectedly became the lived metaphor for finding a new way of understanding and transforming through grief. The crescendo of the film is the revelation that whether it is surfing or something else entirely, the transformational power of grief is that it leads us to new life - bigger, meaningful, electrifying LIFE. Whatever outward, creative form it takes, whatever we commit ourselves through which to live, when we allow life to become larger than before, we find the essence of our lost ones in that place, and that is the place of new beginnings.

A Hidden Star was born from a feeling of deep loss and love. We felt called to tell the story of the death of our friend Allison, diving deep into the pain that was pulling us under the waves of grief. Death is not something we can avoid, by trying to avoid death we miss out on love. We miss out on really living. That is what this film was for us, it was a wakeup call to life.