Jason van Genderen's career as a media maker born to maximise the digital tools of the 21st century has taken another giant step, with the cinematic release of his movie, Everybody's Oma.
The full-length documentary shot entirely on iPhones by the Central Coast filmmaker and his family tells the emotional story of the family becoming full-time carers for his mother ("Oma", as grandmothers are called in the Netherlands), Hendrika, who had vascular dementia.
The film will show at Event Cinemas in Kotara on Thursday at 7pm and Saturday and Sunday at 4pm. It will screen on Saturday at 7.30pm (and on August 20) at Avoca Beach Theatre followed by a question and answer session with van Genderen.
Van Genderen, a pioneer in shooting films on iPhones, shot this film of his mum with the help of his family members - wife Megan, and their children.
Over 300 hours of iPhone footage was edited into a 90-minute feature film by Gavin Banks, from Newcastle production company Good Eye Deer.
Banks and his associate, Olivia Olley, have worked on several projects with van Genderen and encouraged him to take the leap and make "Oma" into a full-length film.
It was during the harsh COVID-19 lockdown that van Genderen had a lightbulb moment. He had already taken "Oma" into his home to care for her, knowing she had dementia and trying to keep her in a "supersafe bubble"
In adjusting his and his family's life to care for her, he also came up with clever ways to preserve memories by filming creative family events she could partake in and then playing them back to her the next day so she might absorb the memory.
"We fell into this accidentally," van Genderen said. "We were making a film about an event at home we were sharing on our personal page. We had no idea it was being shared around the world ... or would inspire a bigger, deeper story...
"We were doing it as a play activity ... a memory event ... it was an inclusive event."
The particular event was creating a supermarket "shopping experience" for her inside their home, complete with wife Megan as the helper and five-year-old son Artie as the checkout clerk.
The clip went viral on social media. Suddenly, she became everybody's oma, as so many people were touched by the rich human interaction of taking care of a loved one.
Collectively, the videos of oma have been seen by an audience of 100 million. People reacted, posting comments about their own experiences and emotions.
"By sharing our story, we had a responsibility to broaden the story because of the feedback we were getting," van Genderen said. "Validating their journey, the feelings and insecurities they had."
The feedback at screenings has been much the same.
"We've had people in middle of a theatre of 400 people, stand up and say, for the first time in my life, 'I feel I need to share my journey'. They've started talking in the middle of a crowd of strangers," van Genderen said. "It is so cathartic ... it spurs us on to do more advocacy, to broaden the conversation."
The film project has seen them segue into career changes, with both becoming advocates for improving communication between all parties involved in aged and dementia care.
"We create change at the grassroots level, which is easier that trying to change the system," van Genderen said. "Through our experiences, one of the things we learned: make ourselves useful to the system, helpful to the system. Whenever we did that, we made great progress."
"We encourage families to rethink how they place themselves in that system ... one positive conversation with a nurse... can change the care in your outcome."
Hendrika died in February.
