What happens when the answers you're searching for may never come?
In this episode of Beyond Our Stories, we sit down with Jennifer Van Gessel, writer and director of Water Horse, to explore our need for answers, the difference between persistence and obsession, and one of the hardest questions of all: when is it time to let go?

In Water Horse, Diane has spent years searching for answers about her mother's disappearance. What begins with love and grief gradually becomes something much harder to escape. For Jennifer, the question at the heart of Diane's story is deeply human: sometimes not knowing can feel even harder than knowing something painful.

Jennifer also reflects on her own determination while making the movie, the years she spent determined to finish it, and the difficult side of persistence that we don't always talk about. As she puts it, “Persistence can burn you out, and it can hurt you a lot.”

But the conversation becomes more personal when Jennifer talks about the unanswered questions in her own life. She shares how relationships and friendships have sometimes ended without the explanation she wanted, leaving her wondering what happened and why.

We also talk about what really frightens someone who makes horror movies, why the people Jennifer loves matter more to her than anything else, and how one movie unexpectedly changed the way she thinks about life, death and how lucky we are to be here at all.

If you'd like to experience the movie behind this conversation, Water Horse is available on AlefCine Stream in the US and Canada.

Beyond Our Stories

The movie ends. The conversation begins.

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