DIRECTOR'S NOTE
In 2013, I lost one of my closest friends. Her name was Yo (Yolanda Shea). Yo was many things to many people: a great-grandmother, career weed dealer, intellectual, psychic, hostess, tyrant, a captivating storyteller. To me, she is an inspiration: a seer of truth and one of my best friends. I wasn’t ready to lose her. - Anna Fitch
STORY
Heaven Through the Backdoor is part documentary, part myth-making. The film explores identity, judgment and spirituality through the unconventional relationship of Anna and Yo. When they met over 20 years ago, Anna was 24 years old and Yo was 73. It was a love-at-first-sight kind of friendship. A year before Yo died, Anna began filming their visits. The narrative structure of the documentary is built from a series of stories that Yo tells Anna about the formative events of her life.
The project juxtaposes artistic interpretations of these stories with observational footage. These epic tales, which span eight decades and three continents, invite us into detailed memories of her rebellious past and offer perspective into parenting, feminism, religion, and spirituality.
PROCESS
After Yo died, I couldn’t look at the footage for a long time. I wanted to spend time with the material things she had left me; her old sweater, perfume, fabrics, old photographs. I began building a series of physical objects and ultimately constructed a 1⁄3 scale version of Yo’s house (and everything in it). For us, the things we built are not props, but sacred objects. We tend to them, breathe life into them, and let Yo’s voice come through them.
Her home was an important place to me, and the made house remains the spiritual touchstone of the project. It appears in the film as a portal between the past and present, between my lived experience and what lies beyond. This process of creating physical things inspired by her life and stories opened a ritual place where our relationship could continue to evolve. It is in this invented, magical world that our film takes place.
THE EXHIBITION
The final project will include a feature-length documentary film and an immersive gallery show that features the one-third scale version of Yo’s house, made objects, and media elements. In both the film and installation, we want to inspire empathetic links between the audience’s own memories and life experiences with the core thematics of the work. The locations we choose to display the work become gathering places for community members to interact with the material and with each other, bringing a vital social element to how the work is experienced. We are grateful for the support have received so far from art world funders, including the National Endowment for the arts, the Creative Work Fund, and the Headlands Center for the Arts.
PROJECT STATUS
We are simultaneously editing and in production, designing, building and filming our re-creation scenes. The creative editorial of our verite footage is now informing our approach to story structure, art direction and our re-creation shoots. We will continue to be a creative mode with the project through 2023 and are planning a 2024 release for the project.
OUR SUPPORTERS
We are grateful to be supported by the National Endowment of the Arts, the Sundance Documentary Film Program, SFFILM, the Creative Work Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Pacific Pioneer Fund, the Fleishhacker Foundation, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Center for Cultural Innovation.
FILMMAKING TEAM
ANNA FITCH (Director) is a multidisciplinary artist and Emmy award-winning director based in San Francisco. She is known for her creative approach to elevating unlikely protagonists in both natural and human worlds. Anna’s films have aired on PBS, BBC, the National Geographic Channel, Al Jazeera, and Channel 4 UK, among others. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, SFFILM, the Center for Cultural Innovation, the Creative Work Fund, Pacific Pioneer Fund, Doc Society, the Catapult Film Fund, The Fledgling Fund, the Bertha Foundation, and the Headlands Center for the Arts.
BANKER WHITE (co-Director, Camera, Editor) is a multi-disciplinary artist and filmmaker based in San Francisco whose work has been celebrated for a uniquely intimate approach to telling large-scale social issues. From war and disease to the complex dimensions that surround aging and death, his work is unified by compassionate humanism. His projects have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Sundance Documentary Fund, Creative Capital, MacArthur Foundation, the Tribeca Film Institute, Impact Partners, ITVS, DocSociety, the Catapult Film Fund, The Fledgling Fund, LEF, the California Council for the Humanities, Center for Cultural Innovation, the Creative Work Fund, the Pacific Pioneer Fund, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Banker co-directed and produced SIERRA LEONE'S REFUGEE ALL STARS (POV 2006), THE GENIUS OF MARIAN (Tribeca 2013 / POV 2014); and, SURVIVORS (IDFA 2018 / POV 2018) which was co-produced with filmmakers at the WeOwnTV Freetown Media Center, a filmmaking collective Banker co-founded based in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
SARA DOSA (Producer) is a California-based, award-winning nonfiction director and producer whose work focuses on the relationship between human and non-human nature. Her recent film FIRE OF LOVE premiered at Sundance 2022, where it won the editing award for US Documentary and was acquired by NEON and NatGeo. Her first feature as a director THE LAST SEASON tells the story of two former soldiers turned wild mushroom hunters and was nominated for the Indie Spirit Truer than Fiction Award. Sara also directed THE SEER & THE UNSEEN, which screened at over 25 festivals worldwide and garnered numerous prizes, including a Golden Gate Award upon its San Francisco Film Festival premiere. Sara recently produced the Peabody-winning AUDRIE & DAISY (2016 Sundance / Netflix Originals) as well as the Peabody and Emmy-nominated SURVIVORS about the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone (2018 IDFA / POV). She also co-produced AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER (2017 Sundance / Paramount), the follow up to Al Gore’s seminal 2006 AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.
HEIDI FLEISHER (Consulting Producer) is an American documentary producer and consultant originally from Los Angeles and currently based in Paris. She has worked in many facets of the industry, including in international acquisitions for France Television’s feature doc strand 25 SHADES OF DOCS; in project development for the Los Angeles-based Synthesis Films (MAKING OF A MURDERER), where she identified new nonfiction projects for the company’s first-look deal with Netflix; and in sales and acquisitions for ARTE SALES, where she led the distribution arm of the European broadcaster Arte. Very active in the international documentary community, Heidi frequently works as an expert at industry events such as Cannes Docs, Hot Docs, EFM-Berlinale and she also mentors filmmakers through training initiatives like Hot Docs Blue Ice, American Film Showcase, DW Akademie, and Eurodoc. Heidi recently executive produced WAKE UP ON MARS (Tribeca 2020) and is currently co-producing the feature documentary EL CASTILLO by Martin Benchimol with the support of Cinémas du Monde and producing the short doc series ELEMENTAL with the support of Sandbox Films.
YOLANDA SHEA
Yolanda Shea was born in Chiasso, Switzerland in 1924 and died peacefully at her home in Pacific Grove, California in 2013. Yo is the protagonist of this epic tale and, more than that, she was a rigorous collaborator, a dear friend and a deep inspiration in our art and life.
LINKS: If you would like to support Heaven Through the Backdoor please make a tax-deductible donation via GlobalGiving here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/heaven-through-the-backdoor/
CONTACT: info@mirabelpictures.org | www.mirabelpictures.org