Rockin' the Coffin

Director, Producer, Illustrator/Animator

Documentary | 9 min | English | 2020 | CBC Short Docs | Cornsilk Productions Inc.
Now available on CBC Gem | A father’s coffin building sparks playful but serious family discussions about death.

Director’s Statement

What happens when we die? Can we ever shake our fear of death?

Cailleah was raised to face hard topics straight on. From the time she was a child, her family improvised rituals and filmed home interviews to “inoculate” her brother and her against life’s biggest questions — the kind her dad says, “adults can never answer but kids, if they are young enough, can.”

Then came COVID…and news that her dad was building a coffin. That seemed a bridge too far, even for him. Was it a death-defying act? Or just something to do with his hands? The family joked about how he’s an old dad who’s young at heart.

But they had to know: did he sense something in his bones? Was this his way of making them face the truth about the future? Rockin’ the Coffin uses animation, creativity and play to address our most terrifying fears and the mysteries at the heart of life: how can we prepare for death and loss? What happens if we try?