Truth Without Exploitation: Healing Father Wounds in ‘My Father, The Queen’

Two fathers. Two daughters. One real, one imagined.
The photo is from my own life—Christmas 1970. The film still came later, but somehow the footage found me. The similarities were haunting.

It’s my story—but not my story.

It took me four years to write a single post about the day I saw my father for the last time.
And it took dozens of rewrites of My Father, The Queen—because the goal was never to create something salacious or glorify trauma.

It’s my story in the sense that I know what it is to grow up needing what a parent simply didn’t have the bandwidth to give:
Validation.
Protection.
Safety.

How we tell these stories matters.

I reflect more on that process over at This Woman Knows. I invite you to read it there.

🔗 https://thiswomanknows.com/the-stories-we-dont-post-on-fathers-day-a-filmmakers-reflection/