Western News: January 11, 2024
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4<br />
Thursday <strong>January</strong> <strong>11</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
Documentary maker finds solace<br />
• By Sasha Watson<br />
KIRSTY CAMERON is someone<br />
who doesn’t shy away from<br />
telling traumatic, hard-hitting<br />
stories.<br />
She has experienced many<br />
deaths of her loved ones from a<br />
young age.<br />
“The first funeral I attended<br />
was at 5-years-old. During my<br />
adolescent years, I attended a funeral<br />
every year, saying goodbye<br />
to over 10 beloved family members<br />
and friends,” the Casebrook<br />
resident said.<br />
“It was a macabre joke in<br />
our family that we didn’t need<br />
to bother with reunions as we<br />
caught up at the funeral home<br />
every year. The same song playing,<br />
Bridge Over Troubled Waters<br />
(I hate that song), the same pastor,<br />
just fewer people getting up<br />
to speak.”<br />
Cameron said at intermediate<br />
school, a young girl had died in<br />
an accident on the playground<br />
and at 17, her best friend was<br />
killed in a car crash by a drunk<br />
driver, absolutely “shattering” her<br />
world.<br />
“I’ve watched four family<br />
members battle cancer. I know<br />
death well. I know what it is to<br />
fear the phone ringing, to fear<br />
that particular ‘hey’ on the other<br />
end, in a tone that you just know<br />
is bringing soul-crushing news,”<br />
she said.<br />
“So I guess I gravitate towards<br />
loss and those who feel it. It’s a<br />
LET’S TALK: Kirsty Cameron, director and producer of soon-to-be-released documentary<br />
The Garden Room, wants to open the conversation around stillbirth.<br />
familiar space somehow.”<br />
Cameron has found such<br />
familarity as the sole director<br />
and producer of two full-feature<br />
documentaries, both talking<br />
about some of the most isolating<br />
experiences one can live through.<br />
Her newest documentary,<br />
The Garden Room, will be<br />
handed over for post-production<br />
work in February before being<br />
aired on Shine TV New Zealand,<br />
GOOD Australia, and entered<br />
into festivals.<br />
Cameron is a full-time freelance<br />
videographer for business,<br />
mostly modelling and fashion.<br />
“But my heart is set on documentaries.<br />
“I love listening to people.<br />
Trauma can be so isolating and<br />
telling their hard stories gives me<br />
a purpose, because if it’s not me,<br />
who else?”<br />
The Garden Room is a true story<br />
about Cameron’s friends from<br />
Burnside, Kylie and Ben Collins,<br />
and their four children, Arlo, 4,<br />
Azalea, 9, Kaiden, 12, and Maia,<br />
14, who were all excited about<br />
meeting newborn Grayson.<br />
At 40 weeks, Kylie Collins met<br />
with her midwife at Rangiora<br />
Hospital for a stretch and sweep,<br />
and the midwife made a devastating<br />
discovery. The baby had no<br />
heartbeat.<br />
Collins was then rushed to<br />
Christchurch Women’s Hospital<br />
where, in the Garden Room – a<br />
dedicated delivery room for<br />
women experiencing fetal loss –<br />
‘Every parent wants to<br />
celebrate their child’s birth<br />
but when one loses them,<br />
it seems no one feels<br />
comfortable to even say<br />
the baby’s name’<br />
– Kirsty Cameron<br />
with Ben at her side, she delivered<br />
her baby boy. Grayson never took<br />
his first breath.<br />
Said Cameron: “When I met<br />
Kylie through church, she was<br />
30 weeks pregnant. We connected<br />
absolutely over her love<br />
for Disney and with loud kids<br />
everywhere.<br />
“I wanted to make Kylie a small<br />
keepsake film of her, Ben and<br />
the kids meeting Grayson. Then<br />
I saw a post pop-up on Kylie’s<br />
Facebook page.<br />
“Everything in me crashed as<br />
I read about what had happened.<br />
There was never any indication, it<br />
was not even a possibility that he<br />
would be stillborn.<br />
“It was the most awful feeling,<br />
knowing there was nothing I<br />
could do. But, with my skills,<br />
I could potentially give them a<br />
space to share their journey or an<br />
outlet.”<br />
After watching Collins talk<br />
openly and honestly at the<br />
funeral of her son, Cameron<br />
asked to follow the family<br />
and she spent about two years<br />
documenting and filming.<br />
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