4020
Folker Street · Anchorage, Alaska 99508 · (907) 563-1000 · Fax (907) 561-1416
For
Immediate Release
Contact:
Kris
Rognes, 261-5317
Southcentral
Counseling Center
‘West 47th Street’ Is Compassionate Look at the Lives
and
Struggle of People With Mental Illness
Four People Fight to
Recover Stability
and Independence in
Acclaimed New Film Showing
February 5, 2004 at
UAA’s Wendy Williamson Auditorium
“This film holds the potential to change the way Americans
look at people with mental illness.”
Michael
Faenza, president and CEO, National Mental Health Association
“There
is Hollywood’s too-perfect version of mental illness - “Ordinary People,” “Rain
Man,” “A Beautiful Mind.” And then there’s the raw stuff of “West 47th
Street,” ... the film offers a powerful lens into the world of serious mental
illness...On their quest for dignity and satisfaction they shout, they cry,
they laugh - you feel their suffering, but also their moments of joy. As the
film’s Frances Olivero puts it: ‘I’m
just trying to be accepted as one more person living on the planet.’ ”
Claudia
Kalb, Newsweek Magazine
Life on the streets
of New York City for the poor and homeless is an unforgiving struggle. For those who also battle mental illness, it
is marked by the additional pressures of fear, isolation and
misunderstanding. West 47th Street, a remarkable new film takes its
cameras into the heart of the struggle as it rejects the invisibility of the
mentally ill who inhabit America’s urban streets. Filmed over three years at Fountain House, a
renowned 50-year-old rehabilitation center in New York, West 47th Street reveals the human face of mental
illness – and the faith and courage with which
its victims fight to recover control of their lives.
Southcentral
Counseling Center, KSKA/KAKM, and UAA’s Human Services Club are sponsoring the
Anchorage screening of West 47th
Street. The film will be shown at 7:00 p.m. at
UAA’s Wendy Williamson Auditorium. Following the screenings, a panel of mental
health professionals will present information about mental illness and answer
audience questions.
In the
tradition of cinéma vérité
documentary, West 47th Street
forgoes narration and direct interviews, letting the story tell itself in the
unscripted words and actions of its subjects.
The filmmakers, Bill
Lichtenstein and June Peoples, initially spent three
months at Fountain House in 1996 gaining the trust of both staff and “members”
before they started shooting 350 hours of videotape. The result is an
intimate and illuminating look into a complex world of hard-won hopes, drug
regimens, hospitals, work programs, group homes – and turmoil that may relent
but never quite disappear. Through it
all, the protagonists approach tremendous obstacles with humor, optimism and
grace.
The subject of West 47th Street hits close to home for
Lichtenstein, whose career as an ABC News producer came to a halt 18 years ago
when he was diagnosed with manic depression. It took three years to struggle
back from the brink of self-destruction. Following
his recovery, he founded his own company, Lichtenstein Creative Media, in part
to educate the public about mental illness.
West 47th Street focuses on four Fountain House members as they
challenge the confusion, joblessness, alcoholism and drug addiction that so
often characterize life for the mentally ill.
Frances
Olivero, a.k.a. Kenneth, comes to Fountain House in a flowered skirt. The
members’ acceptance of his self-assigned gender helps restore his self-respect
and give him direction. Fitzroy
Frederick, a volatile Jamaican Rastafarian with schizophrenia, is determined to
stay out of homeless shelters. But he
continues to struggle with a demanding regimen of anti-psychotic drugs on the
one hand, and the lure of street drugs on the other. Zeinab Wali, also
schizophrenic, was abandoned to the streets by her abusive husband, who took
their children to Egypt. At Fountain
House, she begins to find a path back to reality by cooking the foods she
remembers from her youth. Tex Gordon is
on the verge of liberation. Committed by
his stepmother when his father died, Tex spent 19 years in state mental
hospitals, and another 20 years living in low-income hotels under a court order
certifying him as incompetent. The
order, obtained by his stepmother, has deprived him of the simplest freedoms –
like taking a vacation – and it’s about to be lifted in court.
West 47th Street has an unerring eye for the emotions,
misapprehensions and practical difficulties that make everyday challenges, like
holding a job or living in group households, so difficult for the mentally
ill. But it also shows the resilience of
even the most stricken, challenging the notion that mental illness is cause for
hopelessness.
Through
all, an important truth emerges: that people with mental illness, like everyone
else, ultimately must be treated with dignity and respect.
If you
go...
What: “West 47th Street” 83 minutes
When: 7:00 p.m., Thursday, February 5, 2004
Where: Wendy Williamson Auditorium UAA
Tickets: FREE (donations to UAA Human Services Club and
Southcentral Counseling Center will be accepted)
Call: Kris Rognes 261-5317
Special Panel: Mental Health Professionals and Consumers following
screening
On the Web: www.West47thStreet.com or find the link at KAKM.org
About the Filmmakers:
Bill Lichtenstein and
June Peoples have been honored with more than 60 broadcast and mental health
awards, including a George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting,
eight National Headliner Awards and a Gracie Award from American Women in Radio
and Television. They are married and
live in New York City with their three-year old daughter, Rose.
Bill Lichtenstein,
Co-Director/Co-Producer
Bill Lichtenstein’s award-winning documentary work in television, film and
radio spans 33 years. He is founder and
president of Lichtenstein Creative Media, where he is senior executive producer
of the weekly public radio program The
Infinite Mind. He produced the
Peabody Award-winning radio documentary series Voices of an Illness, which featured the first-person stories of
people who had recovered from serious mental illness. A graduate of Brown University and the
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Lichtenstein began his work in
television at ABC and CBS Sports and later worked at ABC News for more than
seven years as a producer of investigative reports newsmagazine 20/20 and as a field producer for Nightline, World News Tonight and This
Week With David Brinkley, as well as other ABC News programs and
specials. Lichtenstein served as a
primary cinematographer on West 47th
Street in addition to his directing and producing duties. He is from Newton, Massachusetts.
June Peoples, Co-Director/Co-Producer
June
Peoples is an award-winning broadcast and print journalist. Her credits include If I Get Out Alive, a radio documentary about kids in prison. She is executive producer of The Infinite Mind. Peoples is a
recipient of the National Headliner Award, the Clarion Award and the Casey
Medal, and has been recognized for her work by the Deadline Club and the New
York Press Club. She did much of the sound recording for West 47th Street, along with her directing and producing
responsibilities. Peoples was a
newspaper reporter and editor for 20 years, most recently working as city
editor of
The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, New York (circ. 100,000). She is from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Credits:
Producers: Bill Lichtenstein
& June Peoples
Editor: Spiro C.
Lampros
Additional
Editing: Bernadine
Colish
Principal
Photography: Bill Lichtenstein
& Mark Petersson
Principal
Sound: Tracey Barry
& June Peoples
Associate
Editor: Greg Sirota
Awards:
Atlanta
Film Festival 2002 – Best Documentary
DC
Independent Film Festival, Washington DC 2002 – Audience Award