We Didn't Know Why
Director: Evan Henderson
United States, 2025, 7 min
Shooting Format:Super 16
Festival Year:2026
Category:Narrative Short
Genres:Drama, Fantasy
Cast:Kole Kimbro, Pura Fé, Rahnekawę̀·rih (voice), Scott Shell (voice)
Crew:Writer: Evan Henderson. Producer: Tara Tovarek, Shiloh Henderson, Evan Henderson. Cinematographer: Matt Clegg; Editor: Erin DeWitt; Casting: Ivy Pham; Sound: Roland Vajs; Color: Mikey Rossiter, Stephanie Park
Email:evanhenderson22@gmail.com
Synopsis
Two women, speeding down a lone desert highway, confront death, birth, and rebirth.
About the director
Evan Henderson lives in Santa Cruz, California. He enjoys making movies, among other things, and is a co-founder of the Pandora Short Film Grant, a nonprofit foundation that supports emerging US filmmakers.
Filmmaker's note
My understanding of death feels inaccessible from the standpoint of logic and rationality. But if I listen quietly to the space beyond my intellect, it seems as though I can hear the ancestral knowledge of death—and birth—rooted deep in my being.
This film uses extinct languages to play with this theme of ancestral knowledge; whispers from our ancestors, or former manifestations of our selves, that give us knowledge of the greatest mystery we face—what it is to be born and to die. The first voiceover in the film is spoken in Old Saxon—an ancient Germanic language that was spoken by the ancestors of the actress playing the Younger Woman (the actress's real-life heritage). The second voiceover is spoken in Tuscarora—the now-extinct language of the Tuscarora people, which was spoken by the ancestors of the actress playing the Older Woman (the actress's real-life heritage).
The film was shot in the Pueblo of Laguna, New Mexico.