Meet New Day: Kyle Henry
As a fiction and documentary filmmaker, I’ve spent over thirty years delving into the complexities of interpersonal and community relationships—what Variety once described as films that “burrow deeply into the minutiae of ordinary life.” My latest work, Time Passages, is perhaps my most personal yet. During the final months of my mother Elaine’s late-stage dementia, I found myself not just caregiving but creating—using my extensive family archive to explore the complicated layers of identity, grief, and belonging within my large Texas family.
Time Passages is a film about relationships, death, and the limits of control—especially during the disorienting peak of the COVID pandemic. As one of her primary caregivers, I hadn’t realized that the story I was documenting was, in many ways, my own. Positioned by society as both insider and outsider—a gay white man in America—I approached this project as both witness and participant. This film became a lifeline. It’s how I processed trauma, made meaning out of chaos, and found language for grief that felt anything but “normal.”
Visually, the film reflects this hybridity through animated reenactments, black-box stage performances, and cellphone video diary entries. It’s the culmination of a decade-long personal journey through Jungian psychoanalysis, woven with techniques like dreamwork, active imagination, and Gestalt’s “empty chair.” These tools weren’t just for the film—they were how I survived. My final visit to my mother in hospice, in full PPE during the first pandemic summer, was something I never imagined filming. But it felt necessary. Life, grief, and memory are far more layered than we tend to admit.
One of the things I’m most proud of is how Time Passages connected with others. During our theatrical tour this winter, we partnered with Caring Across Generations and dozens of local caregiving groups. Audiences didn’t just engage—they were resourced. And activated. Many even joined efforts to defend Medicaid and Medicare from harmful policy cuts. That’s the kind of impact that reminds me why I make films—to heal, to connect, to transform. Festivals like Chicago International, Austin Film Society Doc Days, and Cinequest welcomed the film, and the caregiving community embraced it. That kind of response means everything.
Watch the Time Passages trailer below.