Parity Pipeline

Genre

Synopsis

ACTUAL WEIGHT OF CLOUDS is a love story about a queer open marriage, a shifting constellation of family, and the death of a husband and father. Kyle and Rivkah's single wedding vow was to keep growing. After 20 years they open their marriage when Rivkah falls in love with her girlfriend, Randi. Six months later, Kyle’s cancer roars back, knocking them all into a mapless future.

Rivkah films to cope with Kyle’s refusal to discuss his dying. She leans into her relationship with Randi to navigate a new level of caregiving, anticipatory grief, and denial in her home. Unscripted vignettes capture the intensity and humor of this time. Watching Randi and Rivkah’s desire effervesce juxtaposed with the old love ocean between Rivkah and Kyle surfaces the complexity of this time. When Kyle’s health declines, Rivkah gathers their community for a long weekend at a friend's ranch in Northern California. The kids ask why they are celebrating Daddy’s 50th when he’s only 48. Fog, wind, rain, and sun create a moody backdrop for Kyle, Randi, Rivkah, their 5 collective kids, siblings, and chosen family to dive wholeheartedly into a celebration of Kyle’s life.

We’re grappling with the third act now, in which Kyle passes. We have a bit more to film as we catch up with Rivkah, Randi and kids 2 years later, and have questions around balancing intense vulnerability with humor. We’re laying in conversations, experimenting with asynchronous audio over vérité scenes to explore what was unsayable in the time of Kyle’s living and dying. Old Super 8, family movies, fogscapes, wild roots, and clouds provide context, passage of time, and micro/macro views which, intercut with the vérité, convey that while this is the entire universe for Rivkah, Kyle, Randi and their kids, this is also just one love story among millions that play out every day.