Film Festival
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This year’s entries to the Recovery
Street Film Festival were all winners
in bringing powerful personal stories
to the screen. DDN reports
Moving pictures
leanor is funny and engaging.
As she takes to the stage to
introduce the Recovery Film
Festival awards, she takes us
back four years to her life as a
‘recovering alcoholic’.
‘I came through the 12-step rooms
and I felt very lost and hopeless,’ she
said. ‘I couldn’t manage the world. I had
a high ego but a very low ego at the
same time. The only skills I knew were
how to get drunk and find drugs.
Recovery has helped me find other skills.’
The film festival was ‘a voice, a
network’, she said. It gave the
opportunity to work on something
consistently – ‘and consistency is
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important to someone like me.’
For those who had put their work
‘out there’ through making a film, ‘it’s
scary’, she said. But committing a
personal story to film was extremely
powerful as people embraced
vulnerability and began to understand
what was going on underneath.
‘You’re all winners,’ she added.
‘Those stories will help people.’
‘My family was soaked in booze – so
I escaped to the film industry, which
was also soaked in booze. Great
literature and great films come from a
place of struggle,’ said Jason Flemyng,
the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
actor, as he presented awards to the
winning film-makers. The theme this
year was ‘My Lightbulb Moment’ and
entrants were invited to explore what
inspired them to change and embark on
a recovery journey.
Flemyng announced that third-
placed winner was Jeremiah Quinn’s
film The Underpass, in which Darren’s
words of advice from a friend, as they lie
drinking and drug-taking in an under -
pass, send him home to change his life.
Second place went to Karen’s Story,
which gives touching emotional insight
into what her recovery journey means
to her and her family.
And in first place, Understanding Me
gave Ceri’s story, an unflinching account
of her turmoil growing up as the child of
an alcohol-addicted mother. As a mum
herself, she reflects on her resolve not to
let the past define her and to be the best
parent she can to her two young children.
‘It was only after getting involved in
NACOA [National Association for
Children of Alcoholics] that I realised
that being a child of an alcoholic was a
“thing”,’ Ceri told DDN. I had been trying
to change myself for so many years, but
now I know that it’s ok. All the time I
was hearing about cycles. I needed to
hear that I didn’t have to repeat them,
and could be confident in my parenting.
‘My mum died in 2003 but after my
son was born the grief returned. I had
two young children who were healthy
and happy, and it was only my inner voice
that was stopping me. The film was the
next stage in helping me and this was
also what I wanted to give my mum.’
As well as inspiring many people
with their recovery, the festival had
another vital role in confronting the
stigma of addiction, said James
Armstrong of Phoenix Futures, one of
the festival’s organising partners.
‘Discrimination is fuelled by
ignorance. We hope the festival is part
of the solution, bringing people
together to learn through film.’
The Recovery Street Film Festival
website is at www.rsff.co.uk
Watch all of the shortlisted films at
the RSFF YouTube channel:
https://bit.ly/2Nh1vKY
September 2018 | drinkanddrugsnews | 15