I received a call from the aforementioned Miami-an woman’s sister-in-law who reported to me that she wants nothing to do with these reels that I have. After much thought and conversation about my phone call, she wanted me to know that she had dropped them in a Dumpster years ago when her mother passed and had no idea how they came to be in the auction at So-Lina. She sent her permission to do with them whatever I’d like. While the sister was very complimentary of my actions while I was speaking to her, there was a part of me that felt like I’d been let down.

Yes, I realize this whole situation has absolutely nothing to do with me, but for a couple years now it’s been a little side project that I’ve worked on here and there in the hopes that I could have my very own Amelie moment one day. I honestly never wanted any recognition or reward for this work, but I loved the idea of reuniting someone with memories of the past and bringing them some unexpected happiness. Now, it feels like my actions were all to accomplish the exact opposite, which makes me feel like a useless meddler instead of the humanitarian good-deed-doer I’d hoped for.

Sigh

Anyway, because she told me I could do with them what I’d like, I think we’re going to take the footage, transfer them to HD digital files and sell clips (without recognizable faces of those involved, of course) as stock footage to various documentarians or other video developers (news sources, advertising companies, etc.) I thought about finding her children and seeing if they wanted them, but that seems like going against this woman’s wishes and going behind her back or something. Anyway, selling them seems like the only way to spin something positive out of all the work I put into cataloguing and researching these reels for the last two years.

And yet, there’s something unbelievably depressing about the entirety of one woman’s unwanted childhood being tucked away into a box in a complete stranger’s home to be sold off in indecipherable bits.