The Heartbreak Of Alzheimer’s, The Power Of Art, And The Meaning Of Family

THE GENIUS OF MARIAN is a visually rich, emotionally complex story about one family’s struggle to come to terms with the changes Alzheimer’s disease brings.

IMPACT CAMPAIGN: Forged relationships with non-profits, national organizations, legislators, foundations for maximum impact and audience engagement. Created social media plan for PBS national broadcast. Facilitated continuing education accreditation of the film for medical professionals and social workers. Worked with Alzheimer’s professionals to develop educational guide. Copy writer and editor for campaign site - The Genius of Caring - as well as site curator, and craft social media and email blasts.

IMPACT: first POV PBS film to be accredited for medical professionals; over 250 screenings in the US and Europe in 2014 and 2015; connected family caregivers to service providers; screened film at 3 medical conferences.

GOD SAID GIVE ‘EM DRUM MACHINES - The story behind one of Detroit’s great contributions to world culture: Techno, the electronic music phenomenon created by Black artists in the 1980s that transformed dance music internationally and blossomed into the multi-billion dollar industry of EDM today. 

God Said Give 'Em Drum Machines premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2022. Raised over $30,000 on Kickstarter. Film was selected to participate in Good Pitch Local Detroit and our rough cut screened to a sold out audience in the 2019 Freep Film Festival. We produced a podcast where we give listeners a behind the scene peek into the making of the film.

AMPLIFY HER is a film, graphic novel, and animated motion comic series that explores the rise of female artists against the backdrop of the electronic music festival scene. Imagined and brought to life by more than 21 female creators across North America, this lush and visually dynamic world blurs the line between fiction and reality while demonstrating the power of letting women tell their own stories.

IMPACT Created screening guide for community screening hosts. Worldwide events connecting attendees with local music DJs and bringing together communities of women.

NEAR NORMAL MAN is a half-hour documentary film, told in a first-hand account by Ben Stern, a Polish Jew, who survives 2 ghettos, 9 concentration camps and 2 death marches.  The Nazis identify him as one of the dangerous Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto.

He emerges alive, only to face the Nazis again – 30 years later, this time in Skokie, Illinois.  Ben decides he will not let them march in his adopted hometown and confronts his rabbi who tells the survivors to “stay home, close the shades and let them pass.” 

IMPACT CAMPAIGN Partnered with high schools, colleges and universities across the country to screen the film and have panels after each screening to connect the horrific events from the Holocaust to recent events. Topics include anger management, Hate Speech, racism, lowering violence in our cities, and/or achieving social justice.

BURIED ABOVE GROUND THREE STORIES OF TRAUMA, SURVIVAL AND RECOVERY

What would you do if the worst thing that ever happened to you felt like it kept happening? Over six years, BURIED ABOVE GROUND explores this question and the road to recovery through the eyes of three post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) survivors.

In BURIED ABOVE GROUND, we meet three Americans who are fighting ngoing battles with PTSD -- Luis, a combat veteran; Erundina, a lifelong survivor of domestic violence who fights addiction issues; and Ashley, a New Orleanian who lived through Hurricane Katrina and returns to confront the aftermath. One powerful narrative plays, whereby the personal becomes polemic.

IMPACT CAMPAIGN Partnered with Mental Health America and NAMI (National Association for Mental Illness) to create screening kit and resource materials. Partnered with local and statewide organizations to host screening and connect audience members with local community services.

DESERT MIGRATION - Saved by the introduction of protease inhibitors in the mid-1990s, many HIV positive men needed to rebuild lives they thought they would not live. In an effort to make peace with the virus inside them, some migrated to California's Palm Springs in the hope of finding a healing desert oasis. But is this environment, with its tolerant population and constant sunshine, enough to heal their shattered bodies and dispel their lingering grief?

Desert Migration focuses on gay men living long-term with HIV who sought out an oasis in Southern California's Palm Springs where both their homosexuality and health condition is not just tolerated, but understood. They represent a huge number of people who migrated to this desert community burdened with memories of watching their friends die, all believing that a similar fate would befall them.

IMPACT CAMPAIGN THE DESERT MIGRATION COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROJECT is a multi-media advocacy and film engagement endeavor that seeks to expand public awareness of HIV/AIDS, aging with the virus and empower long-term survivors who have been adversely impacted by it.

IMPACT Partnered with AARP to have DESERT MIGRATION be part of “Movies for Grownups” and screened in 24 cities across the country.

Partnered with LGBTQ centers across the country along with local and statewide LGBTQ groups to host screenings on World AIDS Day

THE STORY OF THE HARD FOUGHT BATTLE TO DEFEAT CALIFORNIA’S PROPOSITION 8 AND DEFEND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

THE CAMPAIGN follows the people behind California’s historic “No on 8″ campaign to defend same-sex marriage through exclusive behind the scenes footage, interwoven with the national history of same-sex relationship recognition since the 1950s.

IMPACT CAMPAIGN: Partnered with national organizations including LGBTQ Task Force, ACLU, PFLAG and HRC for local community screenings. Partnered with local groups to educate activists how to influence public opinion regarding same-sex marriage.

Collaborated with The Breakthrough Conversation group to create conversation guide and cards for individuals to have with people who are not supportive of same-sex marriage.

Over 200 community screenings across the US, thousands of individuals engaged to work within their communities around issues of same-sex marriage.

Driven by the desire for custody of their children five mothers struggle to overcome substance use disorders in a gender responsive treatment program.  Their intimate story reveals experiences with domestic violence, prostitution, incarceration and complex inter-generational relations.  ON LIFE’S TERMS: MOTHERS IN RECOVERY interweaves the women’s three year journey to self-sufficiency and new found pride with drug laws that impact mother and child, and will inspire hope for recovery.  This documentary film will reduce the stigma by addressing the larger issues that Treatment Works and Family Preservation is Prevention, which breaks the cycle of addiction, abuse and poverty.