PELHAM, NY — On Thursday, April 13th at 7:30 p.m. The Picture House Regional Film Center (TPH) will show the award-winning documentary God Knows Where I Am followed by a discussion and Q&A with the directors Todd and Jedd Wider.
God Knows Where I Am is the story of Linda Bishop, a well-educated New Hampshire mother who suffered from severe bipolar disorder with psychosis, who was intermittently incarcerated and homeless, ultimately being committed for three years to a state psychiatric facility. Successfully fighting her sister’s protective attempts to be named her legal guardian, Bishop refused treatment and medication, and eventually procured an early, unconditional release. Upon her release, she wandered ten miles down the road from the hospital, broke into an abandoned farmhouse and lived on rainwater and apples picked from a nearby orchard for the next four months, through one of the coldest winters on record. Unable to leave the house, she became its prisoner, and remained there, a prisoner of her own mind, eventually starving to death. Her body was discovered several months later and with it a diary that Bishop kept documenting her journey.
In tackling the subject matter, the filmmakers began from a social justice perspective but their focus quickly shifted to a more intimate and artistic exploration. The story is told from a variety of perspectives, including her own, through recollection and first person narrative. The result is a unique documentary, which challenges the boundaries of the medium artistically and at the same time questions societal norms for dealing with the mentally ill and homeless.
After the screening TPH’s Director of Programming, Clayton Bushong, will moderate a discussion and Q&A with the directors Todd and Jedd Wider. The Wider brother’s commitment to social justice through film has been and remains informed by their respective professional endeavors. For over sixteen years, Todd and Jedd Wider have produced numerous critically and commercially successful feature documentary films including the 2012 King’s Point nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, the multiple Primetime Emmy Awarding winning Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012) directed by Alex Gibney, the Emmy Award nominated Semper Fi: Always Faithful (2011) directed by Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon, the multiple Emmy Award nominated Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (2010) directed by Alex Gibney, and the 2008 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary and 2009 Emmy Award Winner for Best Documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) directed by Alex Gibney. In 2011, Todd Wider and Jedd Wider were each nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures.
Tickets to the special screening and discussion are $15/general admission, $12/students, seniors, and members and are available at www.thepicturehouse.org or at the box office, 175 Wolfs Lane, Pelham, NY 10803.