In lockdown, a video of an Australian woman known as ‘Oma’ was watched 100m times and shown on US talkshows. Her son and director of documentary Everybody’s Oma reflects on what happened next
endrika van Genderen first came to the internet’s attention during the early days of the pandemic, after videos of her shopping at a pretend Coles went viral. Her son Jason and his wife, Megan, along with their four children, built the cardboard supermarket so that their mother and grandmother – who they all called Oma – could do her regular food shop at home. Having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, it was crucial that her routine was not disrupted.
But the footage morphed from being a memory aid to a documentation of his mother’s increasing struggle and the toll it took on his family life. In his new documentary, Everybody’s Oma, we see Jason and Megan fight over whether Oma should keep her cat, Oma becoming increasingly frail and having falls, and the 24/7 reality of being a carer.
The family moved out of their rental and found a place to buy with a granny flat out the back. At first “it was fun,” Jason says. “Oma was independent enough to be on her own during the day. She made her own meals and joined us several times a week to eat. It felt like a nirvana at the start, living in a multi-generational household.”
“Oma became our central priority in the home – we couldn’t leave the home. We knew one of us leaving the house would cause her such anxiety,” Jason says. He still can’t get the picture out of his mind of Oma at the window, looking distressed as his car pulled out of the driveway.