Therapeutic Filmmaking, Artistic Collaboration, and Dementia: Exploring Possibilities with Filmmaker Michelle Memran

Filmmaker Michelle Memran became interested in therapeutic filmmaking after spending much of her twenties making a collaborative documentary with the visionary Cuban American playwright María Irene Fornés, who wrote more than three dozen plays and was the recipient of numerous prestigious grants and awards (https://fornesinstitute.com/about/biography). The documentary, entitled The Rest I Make Up (2018), chronicles Ms. Memran’s artistic collaboration with Ms. Fornés during the early stages of the playwright’s dementia and is a testament to the resilience of the creative spirit and the enduring pleasures of friendship, even — and especially — during cognitive change.