Writing As Freedom

How I got by

Writing has always been my saving grace.

When my mother was dying from cancer, I shared with her my desire to make a film. She was weak but encouraging; I desperately wanted to do this big creative thing and make her super proud of me. (She already was, actually). Weeks after she passed, still stunned and mourning, I escaped to a weeklong screenwriting workshop in Rockport, Maine and furiously began the script that would become “Naked Acts”. Even though this tale about a Black actress refusing to disrobe for the camera was fictional and seemingly unrelated to my life, at its heart was a mother/daughter story. The mother character, Lydia, has some of my own mom’s beliefs and behaviors, as does the grandmother character. And throughout my script lay the subtext of loss and grief. I was writing for my life.

Working on the screenplay helped me process my mother’s death, but choosing to actually make the film was another thing entirely; it was my way of choosing life. Just before I entered pre-production, my sister Rita’s lupus shifted in its severity, and she became very sick. Rita was my sole surviving family member. Terror doesn’t fully describe what I felt at the thought of losing her. That’s in fact the precise moment that I fully committed to “Naked Acts”. I used art to outrun death – hers and mine. Shooting a film is such an act of hope, of forward-thinking and trust. And I trusted my sister would get better, because she had to. With our mother gone, it was now Rita who I wanted to make proud. At the same time, seeing her facing mortality made me face my own. Having already lost my three other siblings, I knew I couldn’t take longevity for granted. The same thought thrummed in my head, a mantra of urgency: Do this film now, do it now, do it right now. I had no idea what the future, or even the next few months would bring. Meanwhile, I willed my sister to rally, to get better.

Rita’s health did improve, so much so that she spent that summer helping me raise seed money for the film. She got 18 different people in her world of friends to make small investments in the film, and that enabled me to start shooting. There would’ve been no “Naked Acts” without Rita’s early support. In other words, I cannot fully tell the story of the film without telling the story of Rita, and our bond as sisters.

Life surprises us. Rita passed in 2000. Still grieving two decades later, I turned to writing to process my loss. I decided to write a memoir about my beloved sister. A year into the writing, to my utter surprise, “Naked Acts” was rediscovered in an archive. Suddenly, I was preparing for my film to be restored and back out in the world at the same time I was preparing for my Rita story to be out in the world. Yes, it could’ve felt discombobulating – promoting a new memoir all over while also traveling all over to screen a decades-old film. Two very different experiences, with two very different audiences. But it didn’t feel odd. I knew the connectedness of the two. I knew that the origin story of “Naked Acts” sprung from the story of Rita and me.

Now, as the final stop on my book tour, I’m participating in an LA event on Juneteenth that beautifully merges my filmmaking and memoir-writing lives: I will be in conversation with Maya S. Cade, who discovered my film in that archive and led its release; we’ll talk about both “Naked Acts” and Love, Rita. Most importantly, we’ll talk about how writing my way through loss has made me free.

To RSVP:

And in more exciting news, I’ll be screening “Naked Acts” at Vidiots in LA on June 20th. In a special treat, Vidiots will be giving away DVDs of the film!

To RSVP:

If you’re in LA, I hope to see you there. And if you know folks in the area, please do share.

In Sisterhood,
Bridgett