FLOAT!

"FLOAT!" begins as a traditional documentary portrait. It follows a white-haired Jewish woman with oversized leopard-print glasses as she goes about her day: FaceTiming her childhood best friend from the toilet, letting her rescue dog Tink drink coffee from her mug, loving her adoring husband David, my Poppy, nose hairs and all, and of course, learning to swim.

My film also feels like a family home movie, as it was impossible for me to be entirely “observational” with my grandmother. Through formal interviews and informal conversations with me from behind the lens, Bubbe shares nuggets of sincerity and wisdom. She also interrupted filming many times: to tell me I wasn’t wearing enough makeup, to ask for help using a pair of scissors, to ask if I was cold while holding the camera in the pool, to share her ideas for a scene. I felt such joy being a director and being her granddaughter; it was intimate, fun, and authentic in ways only a relationship like ours can be.

And it brought us closer in ways we will always cherish. The summer before I made "FLOAT!," I finally came out — to myself and others — as gay. It was confusing, scary, heartbreaking, painful, exhilarating, liberating, and true. I grappled with whether I should come out to Bubbe while making this film, and a dear mentor encouraged me to be as vulnerable and real with Bubbe as she was being with me. Bubbe and Poppy embraced me and my queerness fiercely and unequivocally.

Most films about the elderly focus on the past: reminiscing about what once was and lamenting that it is gone. But what if a film considered an older person through a new lens? What if an octogenarian woman’s best days are not behind her, but ahead? What if 82 is the perfect age to appreciate the blessings of your life, family, friends, and body, and to learn something new? Through the charm, warmth, and wisdom of my grandmother, my Bubbe, my film "FLOAT!" asks audiences of all ages to reconsider their preconceived notions about age, beauty, love, and what matters most in life.

By centering my grandmother on screen — with her wrinkles, her laugh lines, her Jewish arms, her hangy buzzies, her varicose veins, her neck brace, her aches and pains, her candor — my film considers the older folks in our lives, inside and out, with curiosity and admiration. Before she was my Bubbe, she was Judy Miller, a charismatic, beautiful leg model who never left the house without “putting her face on.” From Bubbe, my mom and then I, too, learned how to conform to society’s expectations of how women should look. Indeed, I had always struggled with these traditional notions of femininity; they never quite fit, and it was not until much later that I understood, or accepted, why. Bubbe and I engaged, collaboratively, with the tensions between our and society’s demands of our bodies and the vulnerability of exposing our "imperfect" bodies — and our insecurities about them — on screen. Putting Bubbe in a bathing suit and showing her unedited octogenarian body provoked reflection and conversations on interiority, propriety, femininity, beauty, aging, and more.

As Bubbe wrestled with her wetsuit, fear of the water, diminished strength, and physical and emotional nakedness, she wrestled too with the most eternal, most universal question: what is a life well lived and how do we grapple with our mortality? Bubbe inspires all who watch her onscreen: to reframe their internal narrative about their bodies and beauty, to embrace all of life’s blessed phases, to call their grandparents, and maybe even to learn to swim. It is my sincere hope that we can bring this film to audiences of all kinds, all across the world. I may be biased, but I think that spending fifteen minutes with my delightful, hilarious, wise, beloved Bubbe could make your day and even change your life. At the very least, she will charm your pants off.

Thanks for considering — and enjoy!