Endless Light is about a bipolar woman finding empowerment in the wake of her brother’s suicide & her own proceeding attempt. The lead, Juliet Robb, co-wrote the film, while Jacques Colimon, a Haitian-American, co-stars & co-wrote his character and story arc. LGBTQIA+ crew, musicians, extras ~

 

Story n’ Time

Endless Light is a story about attempting to understand death, what it means in choosing to be alive, and acknowledging it’s a complicated decision. Giving credence to those that choose to move beyond living, onto the unknown realm.

 

Joanna is a lifelong Alaskan who escaped her hometown of Fairbanks to pursue graduate school in Seattle. Following two years of school and having finally reached a detente with her manic depression, her brother Charles is found drowned in a remote Alaskan lake, a suspected suicide. Irrevocably connected to her only sibling, Joanna finds herself falling backwards into a spiral of drugs & depression, in a bathtub full of water, slitting her forearm in a desperate pursuit to talk with her brother as she staggers on the fringe of death.

Awaking in her hometown under the hospital-sanctioned care & supervision of her ex-boyfriend, Malcolm, Joanna tries to decipher her brother’s motives while finding her own mental & spiritual stability. In the midst of recovery, her life is upended by a traveling Dionysian musician from the city of angels, Gaia.

 

 

Person n' Place

Having grown up in Fairbanks, Alaska, I experienced what a life of extremes can do to one's psyche. Behaviors and lifestyles freely toed the line between controlled & unhinged as we went from 24 hours of sunlight during summer Solstice to only 3 hours during winter Solstice. The environment is an inherently manic-depressive expression of nature; both a thing of beauty and of uncompromising power. I also experienced how those extremes brought people together and formed tightly knit communities capable of feats one normally witnesses in cities far larger.

Since becoming a filmmaker, I always wanted to make films in my hometown. To me, the landscape and people demanded to be represented in cinema. In the same manner in which I worked with the Fairbanks music scene for over a decade, I wanted this film to be a true communal artistic endeavor with each contributors' voice heard & seen.

 

We wanted to utilize the spontaneity of improvisational acting & shooting during production to highlight our individual strengths (Juliet, Jacques & Levi all being theatrically trained actors, while I have a background in the pragmatics of shooting documentary films). We laid this infrastructure by spending 7 months in deep discussions of story and character; painting lush character sketches that alloted for full immersion within both real & fictional environments.

Aware of the constraints of low-to-no budget filmmaking, we've embraced every shortcoming as open doors to strong creative decisions. This is evident in the exclusive use of natural light, handheld camera work, hybrid docufiction scenes playing out in public spaces, embrace of 4th wall acknowledgement, and storytelling rooted in devout naturalism.

 

 

Subject n’ Matter

I’ve found myself intrinsically drawn to working with the topic of mental health and the manners in which people & society deal with it. My previous film, Florence, was a psychologically driven short about a teenage girl who is misdiagnosed and prescribed psychotropic medication from the school counselor. The film follows her day & her unraveling mind from the mind-altering qualities of the medication. Ultimately, I feel that many ‘mental illnesses’ are actually individuals that are tuned to a different rhythm than what works easily within the societal structure that we live in today. If we went back hundreds and hundreds of years, would a contemporarily schizophrenic-diagnosed person not perhaps be a prophet? A shaman? Someone revered by society?

Coming from a family that has ADHD & Manic Depression in its genes, I prefer to show people who move differently through life. While perhaps not what societally would be considered "mentally stable", these individuals are nonetheless navigating life on their own terms; in all its complex beauty.

 

 

Crowd n' Funding

Whether you follow us or generously help us with funding, we hope you join our community of artists & supporters in making this Alaskan film a reality.

We appreciate your time, energy & consideration, and hope life is going as grand as humanly possible for you ~

 

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