What is it that makes us human? For me this is the most important question while making films. I write predominantly about myself and the ones close to me. Through self-reflection, I try to shape a film that feels straight from the heart. Urgent and alive. This film is a personal investigation and character study of a contemporary couple that has neglected their happiness. In the harsh reality of the day they struggle with the decay of their love. Left with doubts and uncertainties, Cindy and Ward live in a place called the present and struggle with commitments and promises from the past. While contempt has taken over previous feelings, their relatives, friends and obligations continue to be the same. In contrast with this, Lucas, their four-year-old son, gazes at life without preconceptions. The sudden visit of a ladybird seems as important to him as all possible tomorrows. This film will observe and tangibly show the dynamics of a family, brimming over with fond memories and present concerns. Their outbursts of rage, happiness and longings will come unexpectedly, instinctively as life itself. They are no victims of their circumstances, but only of the self. The problems they face inside their small family circle could be compared to those of today’s society: solitude, lack of communication and a human need for tenderness, intimacy and determination to care for someone.
Through a raw, non-judgemental and closely observational style, I want to give my characters more humanity, after all they are men and women, not symbols. Next to the passing of silence their way of talking will become an important element of the film, like a curtain-fire. I will continue working on the dialogues, in companionship with my fellow Dutch director Nanouk Leopold, and although, of course, story is involved, this film will above all be drifting on emotions. I want the actors to communicate with their personal language and symbols instead of using mine. Through natural empathy, which I hope to evoke via a realistic, believable approach, I hope to create life as familiar and true as we have experienced it ourselves, believing fiction is the perfect form to portray authenticity. Like in my previous film Anvers, I will work with a combination of actors and “genuine” people, using existing locations, to enhance a documentary approach through fictional elements. Everything We Always Had Was Now will be an ultra-realistic, dark, gritty slice of life, yet one with a fervid belief in the possibility of love and the smile of a four-year-old child.