Thursday, October 13, 2016

A Filmmaking Trio Bigger Than Heroin, Opioids and Addiction

News of the ravages wrought by America's opioid and heroin epidemics is all around us. Next Thursday, there will be a welcome happy ending for a trio of individuals once tumbling down those rabbit holes.

Matthew Santia, the Detroit native who wrote the script for the short drama Life Prescribed, holds a B.A. from USC Film School and a Master's from Florida's Full Sail University. He was addicted for five years to painkillers.



Per a report in Alma, Michigan newspaper The Morning Sun, director Kyle Couch's personal trajectory is even more harrowing. An addiction to heroin left him eventually homeless and had it not been for non-profit the Grace Centers of Hope, who knows where he might be.

An anonymous donor connected to the Pontiac sobriety facility funded the film, and that same organization will receive all proceeds from the pair of $30-a-ticket screenings set to take place October 20th at the Landmark Main Theatre in Royal Oak. The star of the film, Joseph Atwell, is someone Santia and Couch met at Grace Centers. He plays a husband secretly addicted to opioids.

From the Morning Sun piece:

"We hope this film brings the skeletons of substance abuse out of family closets," Couch said. “It is a very dark world and Life Prescribed doesn’t gloss it over. Our hope is that lives will be impacted after watching our film."
"For the three of us, it was about recognizing the need for God in our lives. We have all said to each other that we were meant to make these kind of films.”

A panel discussion will be held as part of the premiere next week. It is Grace Centers of Hope's first film.

[Life Prescribed]

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