Synopsis
In this compelling and deeply personal documentary, filmmaker Heather Greer turns the camera on herself in an attempt to heal from her mother’s decades-long depression and eventual suicide in the New York City subway on Mother’s Day in 2008.
Ever since learning at the age of 11 that the aunts she thought died from cancer had in fact died by suicide, Heather has been in search of answers.
Her initial inquiry was directed at her mother, who found herself giving Heather family photos and letters to try and help her understand the things she could not explain. Heather put the items in a box that she kept under her bed, spending hours by herself going through them in search of clues to her family’s traumas.
After her mother’s death, Heather started filling the box with her own artifacts until one day it all became too much for her to bear alone and a desire to abandon her role as the keeper of the family’s pain emerged.
In the Box Under My Bed chronicles Heather’s journey from isolation to reconnection as she excavates the most potent artifacts – including a found videotape interview she conducted with her mother over thirty years ago and her mother’s autopsy report – and unearths the true cost of holding onto them.
The truth that emerges from this process, that Heather and her family can release the devastation of her mother’s death without betraying her memory, is a powerful revelation that transforms their lives in the most extraordinary and unexpected ways.
In the Box Under My Bed explores the ways in which women are the silent tenders and keepers of family pain and the secrets that surround it. It offers all viewers, especially women, the opportunity to see themselves in the story and to reflect on their own familial burdens.
Perhaps most importantly, the story offers hope to anyone, especially women, seeking relief from intergenerational trauma.
Key Personnel
Heather Greer: Director • Producer • Central Character
Heather Greer (LinkedIn) is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, media artist, and educator. She is the founder of Black Tartan Studios, a Brooklyn-based boutique creative agency and production company that guides process and production for clients whose mission embodies transformation. In addition to commercial and documentary film, Ms. Greer has conceived and executed installations as well as other works in mixed media, animation and theater.
In her films and media art, Heather invokes vivid portraits on the themes of memory, loss, trauma and healing. In 2017, she produced How to Steal a Chair, an acclaimed feature documentary about design, passion, and lost dreams. The film traveled to festivals around the world, had its US premiere at MoMA, and screened theatrically in Europe through CineDoc. In 2011, she directed and produced Voices That Heal, a documentary about an indigenous female shaman in Peru. The film was an official selection at festivals around the world, including BAFICI and the Female Eye Film Festival (Best Documentary Nomination). Earlier in her career she created Living Portrait, an interactive audio-visual installation commissioned by the New York Asian Women’s Center that was exhibited at the Edward Hopper Studio in New York.
She is currently co-directing and producing Hilda O. Vs. The State of New York, a short documentary that follows 81-year-old Hilda Onley between deposition and court judgment as she seeks justice for the sexual abuse she endured while at the New York State Training School for Girls in 1958.
Most recently, Nevereverland, Heather’s feature narrative screenplay, was accepted into the 2024 Stowe Narrative Lab.
Heather has worked in over a dozen countries, including China, Rwanda, Malawi, Mali and Bangladesh.
She holds a masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she was an adjunct professor and thesis advisor for 12 years, and a Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown University.
Robert Gregson: Director of Photography • Colorist
Robert Gregson (www.robertgregsonfilm.com) is an award-winning cinematographer based in New York. His work has screened theatrically and on broadcast for brands such as Google, Pfizer, United Nations Environment Programme, Palmers, Sesame Street, Hospital for Special Surgery, Snapchat, and Arm Technologies. He shot several campaigns for the U.N. Environment Programme’s World Environment Day featuring Moby, Adriane Grenier, Bill Nye, and Barbara Hershey. The 2017 spot for WED, featuring Gisele Bündchen and Don Cheadle, garnered millions of views online and was displayed on Times Square and Piccadilly Circus jumbotrons. When Stephen Colbert took over the late show, a documentary he lensed on the historic Ed Sullivan Theater renovation was shared virally. His recent short documentary, Color to Color, won Oregon Documentary FF’s Award for Best Micro Doc. He is currently serving as cinematographer on Come Dance With Me, a feature documentary about legendary dance artist Jacque D’amboise.
Konstantinos Kambouroglou: Producer • Editor
Konstantinos Kambouroglou is a New York-based independent filmmaker and media producer and the founder of Gouse Films (www.gousefilms.com), a digital storytelling company. In a career spanning three decades, he has developed and produced non- fiction ranging from investigative journalism to documentaries and from marketing to branded content.
Konstantinos’ short documentary, To Build Strong Children, about human trafficking and education, was an official selection at the Sacramento International Film Festival in 2014 and was repeatedly broadcast by PBS (WHUT) in the Washington, DC area. His 2017 feature-length documentary, How to Steal a Chair, is a meditation on design, passion, and lost dreams. It has enjoyed international success, screening at film festivals, museums, theaters and higher learning institutions.
Before Gouse Films, he served as resident filmmaker for the Wall Street law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, where he was instrumental in the creation of VS Confronts, a video-centric knowledge base serving those who battle human trafficking in the United States.
Konstantinos holds a master’s from the Columbia Journalism School.
Kate Greer: Co-Producer • Project Participant
Kate Greer is an organizational transformation and leadership development consultant with over two decades of experience unlocking human potential in individuals and organizations. She held product leadership positions at numerous Silicon Valley startups including General Magic, AOL/WebCrawler, Excite@Home, Kodak/Ofoto, and SFGate.
She led the design and development of the WorkReimagined project at AARP to help experienced workers pivot in response to economic and workplace disruptions to find meaning, purpose, and renewed aliveness later in their careers. Her work is informed by a lifetime journey of curious exploration and personal transformation to find greater meaning and impact in life and at work.
Kate is a trained Co-Active Coach and facilitator and runs a retreat center called the Compound of Joy in Occidental, California. She develops and leads individual and group experiences to foster deeper, more authentic connection and heal diseases of disconnection in ourselves and in the world.
Woody Pak: Composer
Woody Pak (www.woodypak.com) creates music for film, commercials, Metaverse, XR, pop music, musical theater, and concert performances. He draws from an array of influences and tells musical stories while combining different genres from rock, hip-hop, jazz, classical and a multitude of other inspirations. Pak has received numerous accolades and awards that include the 2021 BMI Film Music Award, Waikiki; 2015 Korea Musical Awards Best Composer, The Devil ( ); 2002 Brooklyn International Film Festival Best Composer, Black Picket Fence; 1998 Billboard no. 1 US Hot Dance Club Songs, “Found A Cure” by Ultra Naté; and 1997 UK Gold record sales for “Free,” also by Ultra Naté.
Pak received his B.S. from MIT and M.A. from the Juilliard School of Music. He was professor of applied music at the Seoul Institute of the Arts from 2014–2022. In the fall of 2022 joined the faculty of screen scoring at Berklee College of Music.
