Every Ocean Hughes | One Big Bag, 2021

One Big Bag reckons with end-of-life care for the newly deceased and those who love them. A death doula (performed by Lindsay Rico) guides us through a mobile toolkit of everyday items used to clean and care for corpses. The film conveys the complex realities and communal possibilities of caring for the dead while highlighting important debates around end-of-life practices, including the high costs of funerals—a death industry that curtails individual agency—and inequalities in medical care.

Writer and Director: Every Ocean Hughes
Performer: Lindsay Rico
Producers: Every Ocean Hughes and Madeleine Molyneaux
Editor: Kersti Grunditz Brennan
Props & Costume: Montana Levi Blanco
Choreography: Miguel Gutierrez
With the Music of: Sarah Hennies
Director of Photography: Sarah Tricker
Assistant Camera: Emilia Aghamirzai
Script Supervisor & Key P.A.: Gabby Preston
Coffin Builder & A.D. & Right-hand: JD Samson
Set Build: Dame Lewis
Sound Design: Lynne Trepanier
Re-recording Mixer: Gordon Neil Allen
Colorist: Tom Brennan, CSI
Post Production Studio: The Flock
Subtitling & Translation: Kristofer Fredriksson, LinQ Media Group
Title Design: Bryce Wilner

Co-commissioned by Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Studio Voltaire, London with additional support from the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Filmed on location at The Kitchen, NYC.