How To Fill The Unfillable Hole Inside You

Director Statement

There are a lot of ways to deal with pain. And the last few years have given us no shortage of opportunities to test our most reliable methods. You can try and drink your pain away. You can use drugs to numb what ails you. And yes, you can eat your feelings.

I wanted to explore the world of comfort food in uncomfortable times. The meals we cook when we are annihilated emotionally. The lasagna you make for a funeral. The bowl of soup you make when you can’t muster the strength for anything else. A casserole of bitter nostalgia. A bechamel of sadness. An aioli of trauma. Chicken ala greif.

I wanted to capture both the comfort and the uncomfort of those feelings at the same time with this film. On one hand, I wanted the viewer to be able to put themselves in the place of these nameless characters, dealing with their unknown traumas, unknown abuses, and unknown pain. I wanted the viewer to relate to these very real and very painful feelings, which is why I opted to never reveal any information as to what these characters are going through. No dialogue about a bad day at work, or an emotional breakup, or a death in the family. I wanted the viewer to fill those holes with their own stories. And if not their own stories, to stay engaged with the film, trying to connect the clues and come up with their own reasons for why these characters are suffering.

But I also wanted to point out the absurd notion that we can ever heal deep wounds with surface level comfort. The same way a drunk drinks to forget, only to be reminded in the morning of what hurts. Hence the title of this film – we cannot fill the holes, for the holes are unfillable. And yet, knowing this, we keep trying. Which is why I added helpful recipes to this film, so we can all keep trying, together. –Dave Canning