ANONYMOUS SISTER
A chronicle of a family’s collision with the opioid epidemic
Director Jamie Boyle will be in attendance for a post-show talk back!
ANONYMOUS SISTER begins in the 1980s, as the close-knit Boyle family is introduced through home movie footage of their lives in the Colorado countryside. As the years tick by, the youngest family member, Jamie, is drawn to the camera in early childhood, begging to operate it at any opportunity while her older sister, Jordan, embarks on what will become a prodigious figure-skating career.
By the time she reaches her late teenage years Jamie is documenting, in excruciating detail, Jordan and her mom, Julie, as both simultaneously descend into opioid addiction while battling chronic pain. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Jamie was capturing the reality of the opioid epidemic long before it was acknowledged or named, when it entered your home under the guise of healthcare, when those to whom we entrust our lives became the greatest threat to it.
Thirteen years later finds both family members sober and Jordan newly pregnant with her first child. The pregnancy will mark her first major interaction with the medical community since getting off opioids. Jamie once again picks up the camera as her mom and sister face new hurdles in their hard won sobriety. What she sees this time is not just a family, but an entire nation, in turmoil.
A Film By Two-Time Emmy® Winner Jamie Boyle
NR | USA | 2023 | 1h 34m
Preceding the screening is the film short:
RECOVERY IN MAINE: WASHINGTON COUNTY
RECOVERY IN MAINE: WASHINGTON COUNTY is a story of relentless hope, resilience, and recovery — the kind of recovery that is only possible when a community sets aside stigma and shows up to meet people where they are.
Directed by Alexandra Morrow
Year: 2020
Courtney Gary-Allen from ME-RAP (Maine Recovery Advocacy Project) will moderate a panel conversation, joined by Chasity Tuell from MAP (Maine Access Points).