THE SHORT VERSION
Our names are Stacy Pershall and Alice Brooks. We are documentary filmmakers in NYC making a cinema verite piece about young women in inpatient psychiatric treatment facilities. We are interested in exploring the boundaries between eating disorders, body modification, and self-mutilation.

Recent News: we have been featured on the Something Fishy website!

THE CONTINUED VERSION
We were inspired to make this film after seeing Allan King’s 1967 WARRENDALE, Fredrick Wiseman's 1967 TITICUT FOLLIES, and Lauren Greenfield’s 2006 THIN. The reason Allan King’s cinema is so important to us is that he has mastered the discipline of taking the filmmaker out of the film. Greenfield’s THIN was a beautiful, important response with a similar aesthetic, but THIN became an excoriation of the American health insurance system in its editing. The only aspect shown of the subjects’ post-treatment lives was their relapse, which, while it certainly happens, is not the inevitable outcome of ED treatment, even if one's insurance does run out. The successful removal of bias from King’s work is both the reason why it’s successful and the reason why it’s art. It was 40 years between WARRENDALE and THIN -- we don't want another 40 years to go by before continuing the cinematic dialogue!

We will work with intensively with several featured patients, giving each of them a Super 8 camera and film to make their own short self-portraits, which will become a part of the finished work. Alice and I will shoot the bulk of the film on digital video.

This film will not show triggering behavior, because between THIN and the popular A&E reality series INTERVENTION, there’s enough graphic representation of ED and SI behavior in the media already. This is not to shy away from the reality of the conditions, but to glorify recovery instead. Although relapse is certainly part of EDs and SI, it is not the story we want to tell. This is a story about finding a new, positive obsession to replace the old, negative one. It is only when this happens that one can really be “cured.”

THE ULTIMATE GOAL
We have two goals with this film: one, to show that recovery from EDs and self-harm is absolutely possible; and two, to give the subjects another means of self-expression and, hopefully, another passion to replace these behaviors.

CREDENTIALS
We’re legit, we promise: Stacy (director) is a writer with a forthcoming memoir from W.W. Norton called LOUD IN THE HOUSE OF MYSELF. Stacy is represented by Penn Whaling at the Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency. She has an MFA from the University of Cincinnati College of Art, with a concentration in film and video installation. Stacy’s play THE COLOR WHEEL was one of two pieces chosen for NYC Company The Intravenous Theatre’s Spring Reading Series in 2007. She will be writing the companion book, a memoir of the making of the film, which will contain stills from the Super 8 films shot by the subjects. Stacy struggled with her own eating disorder for many years but is now recovered, due to having found alternate obsessions!

Alice (cinematographer) has photographed award-winning features, shorts, music videos, and commercials. A USC Cinematic Arts Production Program graduate, highlights of her work include Pretty Dead Girl, an Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival, Spanish Boots (director Domenica Cameron-Scorsese), and last years cult thriller, Ten Til Noon. In 2007 she won an LA Drama Critics Circle Award for cinematography in the Mark Taper Forum production iWitness(director Barry Edelstein). Currently she is in post-production on the indie North By El Norte (starring Danny Trejo and Patricia Rae) and David Hayter’s Schism Chasm. She is in pre-production on Lost and Unfounded for Magnolia Pictures (director Heidi Van Lier) and Remorse (starring Jerry O’Connell) for FeverPitch Pictures.

We have several prominent consultants in the eating disorders and adolescent psychiatry fields. Please email for more information.

WHY SUPER 8?
The reason Super 8 film is essential to this production because it will serve as the beginning and end of each woman’s section. We chose Super 8 because the cameras are inexpensive, we want the subjects to have the experience of editing both manually and digitally, and because, of course, it's beautiful. Thanks to eBay, we can afford to supply each girl with a camera and projector to keep. We are excited to introduce young people, raised their entire lives with digital technology, to this analog medium, and to hopefully help create a new generation of small-format motion picture filmmakers.

Also, we feel it is symbolic that film is another thing that can be cut with a blade.

CONTACT INFO
Stacy Pershall
c/o The Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency
30 Bond Street
New York, NY 10012
pershall@hotmail.com

There are four ways to donate to this film, should you be so inclined:

1. Mail your donation in an envelope to the address above.

2. Make a donation using the paypal button below. This is how we would prefer to receive donations of less than $100.

3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Fractured Atlas . This is how we would prefer to receive donations of more than $100.

Huge thanks to Omar Contreras at Hipgnostica for the website design!