A transcript of this video is included below. This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain transcription errors.
Speaker 1
00:00 – 00:00
Ladies and gentlemen.
Eric
00:10 – 00:16
So first off, introduce yourself and explain a little bit about what Addicts Wake is.
Lisa Hall
00:16 – 01:57
OK. I’m Lisa Hall. My husband and I have lived in the county full time for eight years. And then we had a cabin prior to moving here from Indianapolis for about 10 years. And so I knew this was a special place and when our nest emptied, I wanted to come to Brown County and really see if this was somewhere we could put down some roots. And the way that it happened, I knew there was a greater purpose in my coming here past just empty nesting. And when you don’t know anybody in the county, what do you do? You get involved in things and in ways. And I started serving women in incarceration at our correctional institution over here. And just very quickly realized that in a vulnerable moment in my own life, a dark moment, if I had turned to today’s drugs, I could be sitting in green and white stripes. And I was one decision away from that. And these were precious women to me. They had marriages, homes, careers, kids. And in dark moments in their life, turned to something that is very hard to fight against today and that’s today’s drugs. The properties are so addictive. And so I had posted on a social media post about three young men who had overdosed in Carmel and said you know that I was learning in this community that we had the same issues down here and a woman from Indianapolis called me and said you don’t know me but you know how do you feel about telling the story and I said what do you mean? She says do would you like to make a documentary?
Speaker 4
02:15 – 02:22
This thing has been… This is worse than going to Iraq. It’s a war in Brown County. It’s just hard.
Speaker 5
02:24 – 02:42
There are a group of kids who are sort of connected socially and they lost their children to overdoses. They are very well known people, very well known families and this was sort of a shock to the consciousness of Brown County. What’s actually going on here?
Lisa Hall
02:44 – 02:56
To be able to tell these stories to really shine light on this issue that not only Brown County, but the state of Indiana and our nation was combating and that’s pandemic drug use.
Speaker 1
02:56 – 03:18
♪ I don’t think you are grand gestures ♪ ♪ Just a simple faithful friend ♪ ♪ Someone who will walk it with you ♪ ♪ All the way to the end ♪ ♪ Someone who can live, I love you ♪ ♪ Singing how I’ve come to know ♪
Eric
03:22 – 03:28
So once you had the spark of the idea for the movie, what was your next step?
Lisa Hall
03:29 – 05:24
Well, the next step, it was to assemble a team. And I asked Amy for any director’s names. And she said, “Oh, I know a really good one.” She said his name’s Michael Hussain. I said, “Michael and I went to IU together.” We called him and he answered and I said, “Michael, this is a voice from your past.” And told him who I was and what I wanted to do. and Michael was very excited about getting the chance to help me tell these stories. Again, when you don’t have street cred, you know, you’ve got to reach out to people and build a team. So my husband says, “Well, you need to talk to Uncle Don.” He produced a film called Taxi to the Dark Side. And this was about how we were treating prisoners in detainment in Guantanamo Bay. So this film, this documentary, won an Academy Award. So I invited Uncle Don to be on the creative team to give input, things that he had learned along the way. Went through the story with him and I said, “So what do we have to do?” He says, “Well, you know, you got to raise the funding.” And I went, “Huh, okay.” So I wasn’t daunted by that though, Eric, because for the last 25 years, no matter where I found myself, I’ve been raising funding for something, whether it was mission work, whether it’s my kid’s school, whether it was a travel baseball team, whatever it was, I’ve raised money for the last 25 years. I thought I can do this. I’ve been prepared to do this. And so Uncle Don left and he was very quiet when he was here and I thought, “Oh, I wonder if does he really like this idea?” And I got a note from him about a week later and he sent me my first $5,000 and he said, “Go make your movie.” And that allowed us to start filming August 19th and I would raise money and then we’d film and then I would raise money. So it took about two and a half years to film four stories here in Brown County.
Speaker 6
05:25 – 05:32
I was left with a monster on my back and I knew it. If hell could be on earth, it’s addiction.
Speaker 1
05:32 – 05:44
♪ So I guess farewell to draw ♪ ♪ My everything is you ♪ ♪ And after all the things that you’ve done ♪
Speaker 7
05:44 – 05:58
♪ Oh, you love being proved ♪ – I got tired of seeing our young people die. I got pretty mad. I was, I really feel a lot of anger. ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
Lisa Hall
05:59 – 06:17
I wanted a tool for communities to be able to fight back because I’d had two senators, one state, one federal, and a couple legislative members who are involved in policy for the state say to me, It’s really going to be up to communities to heal themselves and to push back.
Speaker 8
06:31 – 06:41
There’s really only three outcomes. You either quit, you die, or you go to jail. ♪ Sweet eyes ♪
Speaker 9
06:43 – 06:48
♪ My sweet eyes ♪
Lisa Hall
06:51 – 07:28
That’s what I wanted the film to do was to go into communities, but we started with film festivals, and then really in late 22, really started getting requests to come to communities, screen it, Then we have Q and A’s afterwards, which is just a great opportunity for people to process what they’ve just seen. If their story could prevent one other family from having a loss of a father or a son or a daughter or a grandson, I mean, we talk to a lot of people. I have a hundred hours of footage. And unfortunately, there’s no shortage of stories.
Speaker 10
07:29 – 08:08
You help raise awareness about addiction. It’s something that the joys put on. It was a pretty big deal. I mean, I was super, super scared. I always just assumed they hated me. Michelle was kind of helping direct people tell them where to park and she saw who I was and she just immediately ran up and gave me a hug. And I mean, that was, that was something else. I almost felt like a weight just kind of lift off my shoulders, you know.
Speaker 11
08:11 – 08:32
I didn’t want Daniel’s life ruined. We’d already lost Caleb and I knew that Daniel had a baby and Caleb’s daughter wasn’t gonna have him and I didn’t want the same for Daniel’s daughter. So I never I was never mad at Daniel. It’s not his fault.
Speaker 12
08:34 – 08:50
The Lord tells us we’re supposed to forgive and that’s a given, but it’s, that’s hard when you’re facing, when you’re looking at that, but it was easy to want to forgive so that he would not suffer the same thing. We wanted freedom for him. We wanted him to be free from it.
Speaker 13
08:52 – 09:20
I’m amazed by their resolve to really have an impact in this community and to use Caleb’s story in a way to make sure that no one else ever experiences the same. They lost their boy. I stand in awe of their ability to, honestly, not to have lost their faith, but to have had their faith deep in.
Eric
09:24 – 09:31
Exactly where can people see the film and what are some upcoming events with the film?
Lisa Hall
09:31 – 12:04
So we have the opportunity to point people to the PBS platform. So if you go to pbs.org and type in the addicts, wait you have to put in the word the art won’t pull up, you can watch it on demand for free. It’ll stream for free. And then here in Brown County on November 16th, I’m hosting a free screening of the law enforcement first responder film, which is the newest in the series. And that’ll be at the Brown County Playhouse at 2.30. So it’s like a matinee time and then we will have a vibrant panel discussion after that. I’ve got a couple of sheriffs and a cheap Kenny here. He has seen the film. He’s going to come participate in the panel from the police department. And so we’ll have some law enforcement there to respond to the film as such. So that again is a free screening everybody’s invited and it’s the latest film in the series I’ll also be there with a bees hope and Aby is the last tool in the toolbox. Well Because our educational film is sixth grade on up. I wanted to do something for little Making a documentary was probably going to be a little too expensive for me to do that. So this is inspired by a young woman’s story in this community and And A.B. is an eight or nine year old little girl navigating active addiction in the home with mom. And I had three goals for A.B. We want A.B. to know she’s not alone, but she needs good, healthy, coping strategies. And she goes to her imaginary horses in her head and they sing and they dance and play. And this is Prince, the greatest horse of all time. And by the way, ladies in our community are making these for me and they get $5 for every horse that I sell with the book. These are called Comfort Care Animals. And so the second goal for A.B. is that she has a trusted adult to talk to and she has her nana and her teacher to talk to when she’s not feeling well. And thirdly and probably most important for so many communities is we want Avey to know that even at eight or nine she can start using her voice to command her life or something different than what she’s seen in her home. If she doesn’t like that then she has the power to change that. That’s why I wanted to create Avey’s Hope and that is the story of The Attic’s Wake.