"I'm not like a mom, I just, I have a baby"

or, an interview with Nora Fiffer, director of "Another Happy Day"

A few weeks ago, I was asked if I wanted to screen and then write about a new film portraying an honest, raw, and relatable look at the postpartum experience for new parents. I gladly agreed, and am happy to feature Another Happy Day, a tender and tense comedy exploring postpartum depression, intergenerational friendship, and what it means to be family. The main character, Joanna (played by Lauren Lapkus), is an artist and new mom struggling to find her footing in her new life.

Today I’m featuring my interview with the film’s writer and director, Nora Fiffer. In addition to writing and directing, Nora is also a producer and actor, who has co-written/directed/produced four short films, twelve plays, and a critically-acclaimed webseries. In 2018, Nora co-founded Firelight Theatre Workshop and has produced over 20 site-specific, immersive projects onstage and on film. She’s also a mom of two young kids.

Tell us about the film and what prompted you to write it.

Another Happy Day is what I lovingly call a postpartum depression comedy, and it was inspired by personal experience. I was really excited to become a mother and had a very devoted and egalitarian partnership (and still do), but I was still blindsided by how challenging it is and how challenging that transition is—independently and as a couple. You become this new identity, whether you're ready for it or not.

I also just felt like I was not good at [motherhood] right away, and I thought that I would be. I think I also made a lot of things harder for myself because I wanted to do things in the peak way possible. And of course I was sleep deprived and it was a lonely time. I was never diagnosed with postpartum depression and I never sought out a diagnosis. So in my sleepy middle of the night feedings, I would grab a post-it note here and there and start jotting down some dialogue that was just coming to me in this dream state, which is a really soft brain space to start thinking creatively. But I really had nowhere to put it for a long time.

I had been a theater actor for many years and I could not understand how that career continued in that the postpartum period—hours wise, energy wise, body-wise—all of those things. I couldn't picture it. And I also wasn't sure I wanted it anymore. I wanted different things and I didn't know what they were, but the writing was starting to come. And I somehow carved out an outline during those times and wrote furiously, just, it was starting to pour out of me. Time became so precious, of course, and it meant a lot more. And I could be, strangely, so much more productive during the hours that I had than I ever had been before—and I thought I was a pretty productive person!

I want to pick up on this thread around professional identity. In the film, Joanna goes to visit her office and finds out that she's been replaced (she’s an independent contractor, so her job isn’t protected by FMLA). Why was it important for you to include this in the film?

It's so interesting. The first title of the film was Replaced—I was working with the idea of everywhere she went, she had somehow been replaced. Both in the professional setting, but also working with the idea of being re-placed in your own life too, as in repositioned or finding new place.

That's actually the first scene that I wrote, and that's the scene that came to me in the middle of the night. And so it was an anchor for me. I knew the film didn't start there, but the story did for me. And it unlocked how Joanna was operating with a different reality. So she expects one thing and what she receives couldn't be farther from what she wants or expects.

And my sister had a really similar experience to the one in the film. Her job was not one that she cared deeply about, but it was a functional job in her life. And the boss—the woman who ran the agency was a mother, and had purported the agency to be really family friendly—and then when my sister left on her short, unpaid maternity leave, she came back and they were like, “oh, no, no, no, you don't work here anymore”. And then once I started talking about it with other people, it became clear that it wasn't an outlier situation.

In the opening credits, I immediately noticed that you credited the company that offered childcare—which is amazing for the parents on set, but also amazing that you made a service, which is so often invisible, visible. Can you tell us about how you accommodated working parents on set?

It was important to me to not only provide childcare, but to amplify the message. I felt there was a real opportunity to set a precedent and to say, “we have a new standard—even on a low budget film, especially on a low budget film where we don't have the capital to play around with”. So if we say this is a priority, then I think it really sends a message.

We also committed to shooting eight hour days, because that was the other critical component to making the workplace truly accessible [the standard work day on film sets is 10 hours, with filming days sometimes running 14-16 hours]. And that meant a huge amount of preparation on my end as the director, so that there wouldn't be waste on set. And because we'd done the homework, we could pull off the eight hour days.

And in our casting and hiring conversations, this was something that we led with. We wanted to make sure that people felt welcome, that this was a space for them if they were parents (or if they weren't parents). People are juggling all kinds of responsibilities outside of their work and should be able to have a healthy relationship to their workplace.

Can you talk about how you changed as a professional and as a creative person as a result of becoming a mother?

I mean, I'm more tired, but I'm more industrious! And because the hours were really precious and there was virtually no independence for a long time, what I did with my time took on such import. I remember when my daughter was five weeks old, going to an audition and feeling so proud of myself for preparing and getting out there. And it had gone fine, but the hunger—that really is so essential for being an actor, just to keep going —had diminished. I no longer wanted to be in a position where I'm being hired and have no control. I really lost my appetite for that particular grind.

It became clear, after becoming a mother, that the stories that I want to tell really have to matter to me. I wanted to be the agent of my own stories, and I hadn't focused on writing before. And that just completely shifted. And since then, writing, directing and producing have been my focus.

What do you hope people will take away from this film?

Film has the power and, I daresay, responsibility to shed a light on the unseen. My hope is that, upon seeing Another Happy Day, parents won’t feel so alone in their transition into parenthood. My aim is that the film connects with non-parents, too. Aimless isolation, career interruptions, a loss of control, and long lonely days used to be associated with the postpartum experience. But this was the experience for many people—parents or no—during the pandemic. 

I also hope that our filmmaking ethos—committing to 8 hour shoot days and providing childcare—sets a precedent in an industry that is notably inaccessible for workers with young families, particularly mothers.

Lighting Round

Favorite on-screen portrayals of motherhood... Terms of Endearment, Petite Maman, Are You There God, It's Me Margaret

Best book you've read lately... All Fours by Miranda July

If you could have any superpower to help with your daily routine, what would it be and why... Stopping time. There's never enough!

Best piece of advice for working moms... Don't check your email at night. It'll be waiting for you in the morning. I'm still working on this one.

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