Some thoughts on mental illness and suicide



Lorraine Sage as Lucia Giaccone Malone receives
electric shock treatment in a flashback scene.  Barry
Salmon, who also composed the score for Surviving Family,
plays the doctor and Nedra McClyde is the nurse.



Katherine Hughes, pictured at right (with Sarah Wilson,who stars as Terry Malone) plays Lily Fulton,
a teen ager recently diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.



Surviving Family is first a drama - with a dose of comedy - about Terry Malone's upcoming marriage to Alex D'Amico.  But it's also about Terry's mother's mental illness and the emotional scars that the entire family carries  from her suffering and suicide.  It's about both the failures and the successes of psychiatric treatment, and the hope that things will improve.

The National Institue of Mental Health recently reported that 20% of adult Americans suffered from some form of mental illness last year, and that 8 million adults seriously considered suicide (see this article for more).  It's an issue that impacts my family, my husband's family, and many of the families that I know.

I wrote Surviving Family to take on some of these issues - not as a documentary, and not to lecture or preach.  But to support the idea that, with proper treatment (whether prescription drugs, or therapy, or a combination of both), many people with mental illnesses can and should be productive members of society. 

The failure of treatment is represented by Terry's mother, Lucia Giaccone Malone, who is wonderfully portrayed by Lorraine Sage.  And my hope for the future is shown in young Lily Fulton, played by the terrific young actress Katherine Hughes. 

"Surviving" in Kentucky & Munich



Writer/Producer Mara
Lesemann with PJ Stokes,
director of the River City Festival
of Films, Owensboro, KY

 Mara Lesemann & Laura Thies
answer audience questions
in Munich, Germany



The Neues Gabriel Kino
Theater in Munich, German



Director Laura Thies introduces
Surviving Family in Munich



Surviving Family had its European premiere on the evening of November 7 at Munich's Neues Gabriel Kino theater, in front of an enthusiastic full house.  Director and Munich native Laura Thies organzed and hosted the event, which was attended by indie film lovers and filmmakers from around Germany and as far away as Switzerland.

We were thrilled to confirm our expectation (and hope!) that the story and characters do truly cross borders.

A few days before Munich, it was great to introduce Kentucky audiences to the Malone family at the River City Festival of Films in Owensboro, KY.  Festival director and filmmaker P.J. Starks put together a terrific event that offered the opportunity to network with filmmakers from throughout the region.

There's No Place Like Home: The Joys of a Local Festival



Left to right:  Director Laura Thies,
Festival Director Bill Sorvino, &
Best Supporting Actress nominee
Tara Westwood



Above: great turnout from cast & crew

I've loved taking Surviving Family to film festivals over the past few months:  we premiered in Massachussetts, and have since screened in Florida, Ohio, Washington, California, Arkansas, and Toronto.  But as Dorothy says in The Wizard of OZ, "There's no place like home."

We had our local premiere on Friday night October 12 in the Landmark Loews Theater in Jersey City, as part of the Golden Door Film Festival to a large and enthusastic crowd.  Many of the NY-based cast and crew were on hand, as were friends, family, and indie film lovers from the area. 

At the awards ceremony on Sunday night, we were thrilled to pick up 4 awards:  Best Actress (Sarah Wilson), Best Supporting Actress (Phyllis Somerville), the Alice Guy Blache Female Filmmaker Award (director Laura Thies), and the Best Local Movie.  We were nominated for an amazing 11 awards in total:  another Best Supporting Actress nomination for Tara Westwood, Best Director, Best Feature, Best Cinematography (Timothy Naylor), Best Editing (Laura Thies), Best Screenplay (Mara Lesemann), and Best Costume Design (Cortney Hillman). 

Adding to the fun of evening, actor Paul Sorvino, best known for his role in Goodfellas and the uncle of festival director Bill Sorvino, was on hand to present the Spirit of New Jersey Award to actor and artist Federico Castelluccio, who is well known to fans of The Sopranos for his role as Furio, the Italian hitman who caught Carmella Soprano's eye.

It will be great to take the movie back on the road - next on the agenda is the River City Festival of Films in Owensboro, KY in early November.  But it was GREAT to be the home team for the weekend!

Awards and Audiences

Director Laura Thies

Writer/producer Mara Lesemann

Executive Producer Carlo Fiorletta

We survived our marathon weekend of 3 film festivals in fine form, and even prospered.  Executive Producer Carlo Fiorletta brought back from the Indie Gathering not just the Best Actress award for our leading lady, Sarah Wilson, but also the Audience Favorite Award.  And we were thrilled to receive the Best Narrative Feature award from the Columbia Gorge International Film Festival.

Labor Day weekend brought another screening, this time at the terrific Central Florida Film Festival, where Surviving Family was a finalist for the Best Narrative Feature Award.

Director Laura Thies even made it home to Germany in time for her brother's wedding!

But the best, the most rewarding part of these festivals has been the audience reaction at each and every one of them, which has made us realize that yes, we really do have a good movie here.  What matters are the two women who grabbed me after a screening to tell me how much it meant to them, and how much it touched them.  And the people who were thrilled to find out that a second screening had been added, because they had missed the first one and their friends had loved it.  And the guy sitting behind me in a theater who laughed at each and every one of the humorous parts - even the one that comes so early in the movie that most viewers haven't yet realized that this is a movie where it IS OK to laugh.

Next up is the Toronto Indie Fest - we screen at the Toronto Underground Cinema at 186 Spadina Avenue in Toronto on Monday evening September 10 at 6 PM.  The beautiful and talented Tara Westwood, who stars as Jean Malone Fulton, will join me for this one.

More soon....

If The Movie "Multiplicity" Were Reality....

"Multiplicity" starred Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell;
it was directed by Harold Ramis, better known for "Groundhog Day"
and "Ghostbusters"

There's still only one copy of me - and I'm sure plenty of people think that's more than enough!  But I've recently found myself thinking about the movie Multiplicity, in which Michael Keaton accepts an offer to make multiple copies of himself.  It was directed by Harold Ramis, who also teamed up with co-star Andie MacDowell in the far superior  Groundhog Day. In Multiplicity, Keaton's copies take over his life, and are also paler and paler versions of himself. 

This has started to seem like an attractive (if impossible) option with the festival schedule over the next few days.  The Columbia Gorge International Film Festival starts tomorrow, Aug 15 , in Vancouver, WA.  Surviving Family screens there on Saturday night Aug 18 at 7 PM - director Laura Thies and I arrive Friday night, and will be there until Sunday afternoon.  Then we fly to Action on Film (AOF) in Monrovia, CA, which starts Friday the 17th, and Surviving Family screens Tuesday evening Aug 21 at 6 PM.   Laura and I are (I think?  I hope?!) on the same flights from Newark to Portland OR (near Vancouver, WA), and on to LAX. 

That all sounds great, until you add in The Indie Gathering in Hudson, OH which also starts Friday Aug 17 and is also screening Surviving Family on Saturday night at 7:55 PM.  Fortunately, our executive producer Carlo Fiorletta is able to represent us there.

So - THAT's why Multiplicity starts to look like more than a silly little movie, and more like a fantasy. Oh well.  Maybe next time!

In the interim, I'm thrilled to be able to screen our movie for festival audiences in 3 such varied locations.  And hope to have this problem many more times in the future. 

A Great Premiere at a Great Fest: Woods Hole



Director Laura Thies (left) with Surviving Family's leading lady,
Sarah Wilson

We did it!  We put the people in the seats, had a terrific screening and q&a, and on top of that, Surviving Family was the runner up for the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Woods Hole Film Festival.  All in all, a terrific premiere.

It wasn't an easy start, though.  On the drive from Newark Airport (where director Laura Thies had arrived on a flight from her home in Germany), it rained.  And rained.  And then it came down in buckets.  A drive that should have taken 4 1/2 hours took 9 hours.  But it was worth it.

The town of Woods Hole, MA is home to both the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (which gives a college town look to many of the buildings) and a LOT of summer tourists who are there to enjoy the ocean and bay views, go boating, eat lobster (yeah!), and maybe take a side trip to Martha's Vinyard.  

Whether despite or because of the scientific tilt of the town, this is a place that loves and supports indie films.  We spent much of the week handing out postcards to tourists (aka potential movie goers) and leaving cards with local stores and restaurants, all of which were delighted to have them.  The festival has been running for 21 years, and seems to be supported by every local business.

So despite knowing no one in town, we nearly sold out the 220 seat Redfield Auditorium (a beautiful space!).  After the screening, almost half the crowd stayed for the q&a with star Sarah Wilson, director Laura Thies, and writer/producer Mara Lesemann. 

What's next?  We have 4 (count 'em!) festivals coming up between now and Labor Day.   Executive Producer Carlo Fiorletta will be hosting the screening at the Indie Gathering in Hudson, Ohio (near Cleveland) on August 18, while Laura Thies and Mara Lesemann host a screening the same night at the Columbia Gorge Film Festival in Vancouver, WA, followed the next week by Action on Film (AOF) in Monrovia, CA.  The current schedule wraps up with the Central Florida Film Festival over Labor Day weekend.

A Marathon After a Sprint

If shooting Surviving Family was a sprint (an adrenaline-fueled dash through 10 locations in 3 states over 20 shooting days in the course of one month), then marketing it is a marathon.  You go around a curve, up a hill, and back down, and then you do it again.  On the bad days, you stumble over a twig or into a pothole.  But on the good days, you feel the wind at your back and feel invigorated.

On the plus side, and it's definitely a big plus:  Surviving Family is now represented in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean by Circus Road Films.  A distribution deal - a GOOD distribution deal - is the holy grail of independent filmmakers, and it's great to have these guys working on our behalf to help us get distribution.

I managed to only stumble slightly in the pothole, and recovered quickly:  after learning that there is an important difference between HD Cam SR and HD Cam as screening tapes, I had NO idea that our required HD Cam came in two possible frame rates, and that having the wrong one would spell disaster.  Fortunately our friends at Off Hollywood made sure that I had the right info from the Woods Hole Film Festival before they made my tape.

And the twig?  Lately I feel like I'm personally keeping Fed Ex and the US Post Office in business, as I send dvd's, blu ray discs, posters, postcards, press kits and all sorts of fun stuff around the country for upcoming festivals.  On the other hand, I'd have much more to complain about if I DIDN'T have fests to send all this stuff to, right? 

So next stop:  Woods Hole.  Director Laura Thies arrives from Germany next Saturday morning, and then we're off to our world premiere.  I can't wait.

Indie or big budget: it's all about people in the seats

I found myself getting a bit jealous of the movie TED this past weekend.  Not because it features a talking stuffed animal - hey, I wrote a play about talking cats, so been there, done that!  No, because they get to inundate us on TV or on-line with ads about how cute the bear is, and how much you should want to see him with Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis. 

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that there really isn't a whole lot of difference between what Universal Studios is doing and what indie filmmakers do:  it's all about putting people in the seats.  Yeah, they have a few (hundred) million more dollars to play around with than I do.  But the goal is the same.

So you'll see Surviving Family on Facebook, and Twitter, and Blogger rather than on Dancing With The Stars.  And we'll use posters in stores in Woods Hole, MA during their film festival.  And we'll hand out our postcards person-to-person.   But in some ways that's nice, in an old-fashioned sort of way, because you never know who you'll meet, and talk to, and maybe make friends with, as you hand out the postcards and explain to people why THIS is the movie that they should see.

Don't miss us when we come to a film festival near you:

Friday August 3 at 9 PM, Woods Hole Film Festival in Woods Hole, MA
Saturday August 18 at 7 PM, Columbia Gorge Int'l Film Festival in Vancouver, WA

AOF Film Festival in Monrovia, CA, date and time to be announced
Central Florida Film Festival, Labor Day Weekend, date and time to be announced

More coming soon!

First up: Woods Hole Film Festival

After a year of pre-production, a 2 month shoot, and 6 months of post-production, we finally know when and where Surviving Family will premiere!  It's an official selection of the 21st annual Woods Hole Film Festival in Cape Cod, MA, and will screen on Friday night August 3 at 9 PM.  It's a terrific time slot (dinner and a movie, anyone?), both for festival goers and tourists!

We'll get everything off to a hopefully-smooth start a few days in advance:  in a well-choreographed scheduling dance, director Laura Thies will arrive on an over-night flight from her home in Germany, and writer/producer Mara Lesemann will swoop into Newark Airport to pick her up.  The two of us will then hit the road (traffic-free of course!) from New Jersey to Cape Cod.  Nothing can go wrong.  Right?

Please follow us and share our festival experiences through the summer, and fall, and into next year! 

And if you haven't yet seen our trailer, you can check it out here.