Alumni Interview: Cynthia Lester

Question Time with Peter Baxter

Cynthia Lester’s My Mother’s Garden is a feature documentary about her mother and a hoarding disorder of epic proportions. As Mom’s swag temptation unfolds in the halls of Slamdance HQ, Cynthia discusses her feature directorial debut.

Tell me more about your mom.

Sure. My mother has a compulsive collective hoarding disorder. In the film she basically collects so much garbage in her house that she no longer can get in and lives homeless in her garden, hence the title. But she’s not just a hoarder. She has an amazing philosophy toward life and a strong connection with nature, and she wants to fill her life with things that are going to amount to something.

You show a great love for your mom in the doc yet decided to help her within a filmmaking process that also caused great pain. Why did you do this?

When I was a teenager I clung to filmmaking as a way to process things that were overwhelming me in my life, and they usually focused on my mom and my family. The filmmaking here allowed me to get to know my mother on a deeper level and better understand her. When you’re finding it hard to deal with a family member, often it’s easier to walk away. But the camera allowed me to be more patient with her and follow her around. I was able to go deeper into her life and observe a community of homeless friends I didn’t know about, that she would hang out with and entertain in her garden.

The big clean-up is a very dramatic part of your doc.

We weren’t thinking that it would be; I made three back and forth trips from New York to Los Angeles to clean a little bit, but we didn’t make a dent. I said to my mom: why doesn’t she come back to my home in New York around her birthday and give the boys a chance to better clean the house? So she did and it was her decision. Hoarding specialists would have said don’t do what we did to our mom’s house and I hope my action exemplifies why you should not try this at home. It was not an ideal situation and the wrong way to go. If we had more money and time we could have gone through a more therapeutic process but we had to compromise mom’s ideals, deal with my brothers and what was going on in my life.

I just didn’t want to live with the guilt of letting my mom die in her house like that. People might say I violated her but the possibility of her being trapped inside was real.

Is your mom happier now?

Yes, she is and healthier.

Do you think American consumerism contributed toward your mom’s disorder?

Yes, and it’s unfair because American corporations are leeching off these type of people. I had to do something to change that, but I didn’t want to make a preachy film about consumerism. I wanted to give my mom a voice. There are not many given to women in the lower economical bracket and I hope others can get a lot of strength out of this family. We are not exactly a “Leave It To Beaver” family.

Do you want to continue filmmaking?

I’m in the middle because it took a lot of out me. It was crazy for me to struggle making the film while working full-time in a crisis center for abused women. Once I recharge my creative juices and can raise money for a project maybe I’ll go back and do it again but first I have other goals: to go back to school for a social studies degree. So, if I come back to film, this education might give me a better insight and access for another project. I do have a passion for filmmaking… we will have to see.

Onward and upward Cynthia!