'My Mom, The Alchemist unfolds nonlinearly—as a dialogue between me and my mother: her experiences as a scientist, activist, educator, and mother, and my efforts to make sense of them as a queer artist and son.
I discover how my mother’s decisions—to have children while pursuing her PhD in chemistry in the 1960s, to move to East Africa in the 1970s, to her international activism and move to South Africa in the 1990s—were about remaining true to herself while navigating the white male world of science. However, it wasn’t until I started making this film that I had ever seen a photograph of my mother at work in a lab or teaching chemistry to students. On the one hand, Rudean was a muse to her family—her father, her South African husband, and her two gay artist sons—and there are literally thousands of images of her from her birth, at school, church, family events, during marches for her favorite causes, and more. On the other, there were no photographs of her life, work, and passion for chemistry. Why was such a defining part of her life never captured in the family album?
As I set out to explore this question, among others, I’m struck by the seemingly magical alchemy that Rudean employed to transform obstacles into opportunities. She developed formulas for living a deep, rich, and authentic life that she shared with her community. Almost as if imbued with the powers of the Philosopher's Stone, she could discover and nurture the golden brilliance of her Community College students, otherwise discounted by society at large.'