By Brett DeNeve:
It was standing room only as friends, family members, potential investors, and anyone who had read Kaitlin Lindahl’s article in the Amherst Bee packed into the rearranged dining room of the Mid-Day Club yesterday evening for an informative teaser and rough-cut screening of Leslie Koren’s documentary film project “Now Return Us to Normal”. Koren, the film’s director, was accompanied by her co-producer Betsy Laikin. The reception room was equipped with great food, a meat and cheese platter, white Muscat and red Cabernet 377 wine, and a selection of beer from Flying Bison.
Koren, a Greater Buffalo native, was uprooted from Nichols high school in her junior year to attend a reform school in rural Utah. She went there to deal with some mental health issues and stayed there year round for the duration of her high school career. She looks to revisit this time in her life for the documentary, shooting both in Utah and Buffalo with hopes to integrate her resources in the arts community here and her overall struggle and recovery of mental illness which occurred substantially in Buffalo.
“I think it was a successful night,” Laikin said. Koren smiled in agreement. The project’s showing followed a selection from one of Koren’s previous works concerning hospice volunteers. From a heart wrenching interview with a volunteer who had experienced his patient’s death to a b-roll clip of a Rabbi playing cards with an elder woman, whereas she decided to look straight into the camera and ask if they were done with the film yet, making the whole room fill with laughter, this screening highlighted Koren and her team’s ability to span the spectrum of human emotion.
After the documentary rough-cut screening, Koren cited a quote from her mother in a scene that will likely make the cut for the final edit; “It’s like you took a trip somewhere, stayed there for two years, and acted like it never happened.” Koren continued in her own words, “I spent twelve years after coming back not saying anything about it.” Just the process of filming this documentary alone will give some much needed air to a two year span of memories and experiences buried deep under subconscious ground, not only for Koren, but for her fellow classmates.
As guests exited the screening room, they submitted their emails onto a mailing list to be updated on future forthcomings concerning Koren’s efforts. She plans to begin filming testimonies and interviews with family members and alumni from her school in December. If you would like to follow Koren and her team along their journey, here is their Facebook page and Twitter link.