Nora Fiffer’s debut film “Another Happy Day” was shown on November 7 at the Putnam Theater to Keene State students and faculty, as well as the city’s community. Fiffer herself made an appearance after the film finished to answer questions.
Nora Fiffer was born in Evanston, IL. and has a theater background, basing her work primarily out of Chicago and New Hampshire. She is a writer, producer, director and actor, all roles that she played in this film.
She has guest starred on NBC’s “Chicago Med” and ABC’s “1-8-7”, as well as a handful of other independent films, receiving two Jeff Nominations for her work. In 2020, she was also awarded Best Production and Best Director by the New Hampshire Theatre Alliance (NHTA).
Fiffer also founded the Firelight Theatre Workshop in 2017 in Peterborough, NH, alongside Jason Lambert. Firelight has won numerous awards, such as the Best Experimental Theatre by NH Magazine in 2020.
This film is centered around postpartum depression, which is depression that comes after giving birth. Fiffer uses intergenerational relationships, comedic elements and certain stylistic choices to convey the importance of family to her audiences.
One stylistic choice that was present throughout the entire film was the use of longer shots. In this film, Fiffer aimed to have those longer shots to show audiences how slowly time truly passes, especially for a new mother trying to take care of her baby.
“That can create discomfort at first, like ‘wait isn’t something supposed to happen?’” Fiffer commented, “and a little bit longer, ‘okay, now something’s gonna happen, but when?’ and now we’re stretching out time, now it’s tense. And then if we go for another lap around, it’s funny.”
This film also shows off the reality of having a kid instead of what the world has made it out to be. Fiffer got the idea for this film after being inspired by her own personal journey of having a child.
“I really wasn’t sure what it would become,” Fiffer stated, “but then when I had a little more bandwidth, a little more time as my daughter started to grow, I started to see the sequence, and I started to see what the character’s journey could be.”
An attendee of the event, first-year William Gagnon, commented about his thoughts of the movie.
“It showcases an aspect of new parents’ lives that you rarely see in the media,” Gagnon stated, “and it’s just kind of like a fascinating, more upbeat and happy outlook on having a child and dealing with the fact that it causes a lot of stress and can be very hard on stay at home parents.”
After the film was shown, Fiffer answered the audience’s questions about the movie, as well as the production. She discussed what needed to go into the production, like location and working with a baby, as well as her stylistic choices, such as the longer shots and her inspiration for the film itself.
“It was not autobiographical, it became such a work of fiction overtime,” Fiffer said, “and I was saying earlier today that we shot draft 30 of this script I revised 29 times.”
Film Society President Ryan Severn and Vice President Tyler Desjardins were not available for interviews by print deadline.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
