The Garden of Edette is a story about a Creole woman named Edette cursed to live eternally without the comfort of kinship or family. Resentful and lonely, she longs for companionship but is forced to feed her own people to a man-eating garden that is tied to her life force. One day, she meets a young Creole girl named Perri who reminds her of the daughter she almost had. But when the garden gets hungry again, Edette must choose between sacrificing herself or her unexpected new friend.

This story is important to me because my grandmother died when I was 3 years old. She was the last living person in my family to speak Louisiana Creole and the last connection to my heritage. Growing up, I’ve always felt the hole left by her passing but it was hard to place words to this feeling. It wasn’t until I began my own research on my culture that I began to understand and see a trend in many Creole families. Due to ethnic prejudice, after my grandmother’s generation, Creole french was not passed down in order to avoid discrimination and asimilate. As the culture is almost entirely based in oral tradition this intolerance resulted in a gradual ethnic erasure. 

This film acts as a mirror to the state of the multi-generational gap between Creole people, as well as an imagined last lesson from my grandmother to myself. As younger generations become increasingly culturally aware, we are starting to recover the things we have lost. With this film, I hope to contribute to the cultural recovery and make my grandmother proud.