“It was for the family just so we had really beautiful memories that we could recall for Oma before she left us,” he says.
But one warm-hearted video that showed van Genderen taking his delighted mother shopping at a mock supermarket he had set up at his home on the NSW Central Coast – complete with a trolley,shopping list and his wife and two children serving behind the counter – resonated around the world when he posted it on Facebook.
By the end of that week,it had been watched nine million times and had been covered on Australian television and,in the US,onGood Morning America andThe Late Late Show with James Corden.
“It blew up,” van Genderen says. “Before we knew it,we’d wake up with our phones full of shares,messages and millions of views. People were talking about what was going on in our little house in Forresters Beach on a global scale.”
Realising that many of these viewers were trying to deal with dementia in their own lives – either personally or with a relative – he kept making videos of his Dutch-born mother,finding her enthusiasm and warm smile remained as Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia advanced.
He took Oma shopping for clothes at home with the family pretending to be shop staff. Outside the house one night,he projected images of fish swimming across the windows to simulate their visits to Sydney Aquarium when he was a child.
And the community of viewers kept growing. Van Genderen lost count after they quickly passed 100 million views.
Now a documentary he has made that chronicles his mother’s final years,Everybody’s Oma,will have a world premiere at Sydney Film Festival next month. Described as an “uplifting film that charts the family’s playful,moving and hopeful journey in the public spotlight and behind the scenes”,it is competing in the $10,000 competition for best Australian documentary.
The festival’s director Nashen Moodley has revealed a strong line-up of Australian feature films and documentaries for the 69th festival,which runs from June 8 to 19.
Returning to the traditional winter slot after the pandemic forced it to be delayed until November last year,the festival opens with the anthology filmWe Are Still Here, a celebration of Aboriginal,Maori and South Pacific Islander resilience from 10 mostly emerging directors.
“We have international filmmakers returning,” Moodley says. “We have parties and activities. It feels like we’re getting closer to what the festival was pre-pandemic.”
In a departure from tradition,the closing night film has yet to be chosen but it seems unlikely that either of the country’s two big films at the Cannes Film Festival this month - Baz Luhrmann’s musical biopicElvis or George Miller’s fantasy romanceThree Thousand Years Of Longing -will fill the slot.
The $60,000 official competition for “audacious,cutting-edge and courageous” cinema includes two bold Australian films:Archibald Prize-winning artist Del Kathryn Barton’sBlaze,which is described as magical story about a 12-year-old girl who witnesses a shocking crime,and Goran Stolevski’sYou Won’t Be Alone,a supernatural tale about a shape-shifting witch in a Macedonian village.
Also in the competition are the top prizewinner at the Berlin Film Festival (Carla Simon’s Spanish dramaAlcarras),an Indonesia drama set in the tumultuous 1960s (Kamila Andini’sBefore,Now&Then) and a tense Mexican thriller about a teenager’s search for his long-lost father (Lorenzo Vigas’The Box).
As well as a political thriller set in a small Turkish town (Emin Alper’sBurning Days),there is a documentary about a French couple who became daredevil vulcanologists (Sara Dosa’sFire of Love) and a love story about an elderly Indigenous couple battling to retain their way of life in Bolivia (Alejandro Loayza Grisi’sUtama).
Promising Australian films screening elsewhere in the festival include Gracie Otto’sSeriously Red,a comedy about a woman who becomes a Dolly Parton impersonator;Craig Boreham’sLonesome,about a country boy who discovers Sydney’s gay dating culture;and David Easteal’sThe Plains,a docudrama set inside a car as a Melbourne lawyer drives home.
Especially topical is Rowan Devereux’sEvicted:A Modern Romance,about four housemates trying to survive in the Sydney rental market.
The $10,000 documentary competition includes Maya Newell’sThe Dreamlife of Georgie Stone,about a transgender teen,Luke Cornish’sKeep Stepping,which focuses on two Sydney street dancers,and Brodie Poole’sGeneral Hercules,about a quirky mayoral election in Kalgoorlie.
Moodley says it is a strong year for comedies at the festival,citing Cooper Raiff’sCha Cha Real Smooth,about a college graduate played by the director who falls for an older mother played by Dakota Johnson,and Australian director Sophie Hyde’sGood Luck to You,Leo Grande,which has Emma Thompson as a retired widow who hires a young sex worker.
Then there is Armagan Ballantyne’s absurdist Kiwi comedyNude Tuesday,which has Damon Herriman and Jackie van Beek as a couple who try to save their marriage at a new-age retreat,and Craig Roberts’The Phantom of the Open,with Mark Rylance as the worst golfer to ever play the British Open.
While there fewer big ticket Hollywood movies than whenKing Richard,Dune andZola screened last year,Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain star in John Michael McDonagh’s blackly comicThe Forgiven,and Amy Schumer,Richard Jenkins and Steven Yeun feature in Stephen Karan’s family dramedyThe Humans.
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Email the writer at gmaddox@smh.com.au and follow him on Twitter at.