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Written and directed by Alyssa Lerner
Produced by Tracy Smith, Alyssa Lerner, and Kimia Behpoornia
Starring Kimia Behpoornia, Dylan Mulvaney, and Vic Michaelis
Hi! My name is Alyssa Lerner and I'm a queer, non-binary, Filipino-American filmmaker. I, alongside my producers Tracy Smith and Kimia Behpoornia and fiscal sponsor, A BUNCH OF SAVAGES, want to tell you a little story that's very dear to our hearts. Take a seat and grab some tea while we tell you about FIRST DEATH.
We’ve all been told that there are certain markers to tell us if our lives have been well lived: a loving family, a long marriage, 2.3 biological children, a respectable career. When I realized I was queer as a teenager, it suddenly felt like all the markers of adult life were painfully out of reach. At the time, I had no accepting family, no legal gay marriage, and no hope for biological children. Thus, it felt like I had no way of growing up. I figured that soon I would just... die.
I trudged along, not dying. Trepidatiously learning to be myself. Learning that when you live outside of normativity... you still live. Somewhere along the way, not dying became living. And living became gratitude for the distance I have from society’s norms. I became proud to live on my own terms-- limitless.
Then one day, I met a woman who was on track to meet all the markers of normative adulthood. She had a curated life, complete with a long-term boyfriend, house, and career, but then-- perhaps unfortunately-- she fell in love with me. She kept our affair a secret, maintaining appearances, while I itched to remain as open as I had spent my life fighting to be. It felt like a fight between our timelines. I begged her to join me on my terrifyingly limitless path, while she clung to the traditional one she had always wanted.
She chose to stay on her path, so I continued on mine.
I spent months nursing my own wounds by judging hers: she was a coward, she was making a mistake, she was wasting her life. But the truth is... there’s no way to waste your life. There are no markers to a life well lived. You could marry a man. You could have a child. You could do neither. You could live your truth, or you could keep your truth preciously close to your chest. You make your choices and live with them... and that’s just it: you live. And that is always enough.
Our film, FIRST DEATH, follows 659, a soul newly formed soul who gets placed in their first lifetime on earth as a woman named MARGOT. After an abruptly short life and untimely death, 659 unwillingly returns to Sky Headquarters, determined to take a piece of their life as Margot into the afterlife with them.
FIRST DEATH is a comedic fantasy short film with the whimsical world-building of THE GOOD PLACE and the urgent longing and heart of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. It follows one soul coming to terms with the devastating truth that, no matter the length and what they did, their life was worth living. And, thus, it is worth grieving.
With this film, I want to show the violence with which we hold onto what is not meant for us-- and the gentleness required to let go. After all, the heart is a door: letting something leave it requires opening it once more.