Back in 1999, Reva Lee was coping with leukemia and the financial struggles that followed her diagnosis. J. chronicled what Lee was going through and how she kept her spirits up while parenting a teen daughter and younger son.
“I’m known for my creativity and innovation,” she told J. at the time, adding that she was working on a screenplay. “That’s my legacy I’ll leave to my kids. I’ll have no money left; it’s all gone.”
Lee died the next year. And now that daughter has written a screenplay of her own.
“Still Life,” the semi-autobiographical movie by Lee’s daughter, Lauren Shapiro, will premiere Feb. 7 at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.
Shot entirely in the East Bay with local actors, “Still Life” reflects Shapiro’s roots in Oakland and Walnut Creek, from her childhood camp at the local JCC to her bat mitzvah at Congregation B’nai Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Walnut Creek.
Shapiro, 41, a former professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, said she had always wanted to make a film. The goal became urgent during the pandemic.
“It just reminded me that life was short,” Shapiro said. “So I quit my job and ran a successful Kickstarter campaign, and we were off to the races.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The movie takes place and was filmed in the East Bay. Why was it so important to you to make this film hyperlocal?
I can’t imagine having filmed it anywhere else. I really wanted to boost the careers of folks locally. I really believe in the Bay Area film scene and wanted to help that grow. But also, place is so important. This film really is a love letter to this place. If I could have included smell in the film, I would have: the scent of wild oak and fennel growing by the bay.
With reenacting these different parts of my life, Anika, who plays Dafne, the lead, she’s wearing my clothes. The textbooks are the actual textbooks from Las Lomas High School. The woman who plays the honors English teacher was my English teacher. I was as authentic as I could be.
Was it strange to see your life reenacted on screen, especially in such a difficult time?
People ask if it was therapeutic and what it was like to film the scene of my mother dying. I had really hoped that it was going to be therapeutic and cathartic. It was not at that moment.
It wasn’t until I saw the trailer that it was therapeutic because that was the first time I was able to watch this story and feel empathy for the main character, who is actually me.
You’re Jewish, and Dafne is based on you. How Jewish is the main character?
There are subtle nods to Judaism: When her mother dies, the family lights a yahrzeit candle. Her mom calls her shayna punim [Yiddish for pretty face], my mom’s nickname for me. When she goes to her best friend’s house — it was shot in my best friend’s house — there’s a mezuzah on the door and a hamsa.
It’s not the main piece that the story is about, but it’s her identity. It’s refreshing to see that for a Jewish teenage girl.
What do you hope audiences will take away?
I would love for this film to act as sort of a grief public service announcement, a reminder that loved ones, friends, strangers might be going through stories you have no idea about. It’s a reminder of the importance of being compassionate to people around you who might be suffering.
My mom always instilled in me from a really early age that when bad things happen, you should take good notes and make a story out of it that could help other people.
It gives me chills that she was working on a screenplay. It was really her hope to get her story out into the world. So it’s my hope that in some small way, I am helping to achieve that.
If You’re Going
“Still Life” premieres at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, with a post-screening Q&A. At the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., S.F., as part of S.F. IndieFest and co-presented by the Jewish Film Institute. Tickets can be purchased at sfindie2026.eventive.org/schedule. Virtual tickets also available.