MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH

Brief Synopsis

When a Hartford couple turns to psychiatry for help with their marriage in 1960, things quickly spiral out of control. Couples counseling, individual and group therapy and 24-hour marathon sessions ensue. Their four children suffer and are given their own psychiatrists. Pills are prescribed, people are institutionalized, shock-therapy is administered. This is an intimate story in the family’s own words, from an extraordinary collection of audio recordings and home movies, illuminating a difficult and extraordinary time.

MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH

Synopsis

Filmmaker Morgan Dews was very close to his grandmother Allis, but it wasn’t until after her death in 2001 that he became aware of an astounding archive she’d amassed throughout the 1960s. Filled with startlingly intimate and candid audio recordings detailing her family’s increasingly turbulent lives, the collection also contained hundreds of silent home movies, photographs and written journals. Using only these found materials, Dews has fashioned a searing family portrait that affords fly-on-the-wall access to one family’s struggles amid an America on the verge of dramatic transformation.

Must Read After My Death follows Allis, her husband Charley and their four children in Hartford, Connecticut. Charley’s work takes him to Australia four months each year, so the couple purchases Dictaphone recorders as a way to stay in touch throughout Charlie’s extended absences. A modern woman at least a decade ahead of her time, Allis struggles against conformity – against the conventional roles of wife and mother. She finds the recordings cathartic and, with the family’s cooperation, incorporates them into their everyday existence. When the family turns to psychologists and psychiatrists, their strife increases and the recordings turn progressively darker – even desperate. All the while, Dews employs the family’s many home movies and the seemingly placid, typically American façade that they convey, as visual counterpoint to the raw and sobering tape recordings.

    Written, produced, directed and edited my Morgan Dews, grandson of Allis and Charley.

    Composer and recording artist Paul Damian Hogan of Frances has created a lush and engrossing score. Renowned Design Director, Lisa Kwon, fashioned stellar graphics and animated sequences for the film. Executive Producer, Alison Bourke was Executive Producer on This Film is Not Yet Rated and Z Channel: a magnificent obsession. Brett Graves mixed the sound at Creative Bubble.

    Mark Lipsky, Brian Devine and Brooke Devine of Gigantic Releasing will be releasing the film theatrically in the English speaking world!!!

Morgan Dews - bio

Filmmaker and artist Morgan Dews divides his time between Barcelona and New York City. His most recent documentary, MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH, a visually daring film about his grandparent's turbulent marriage, will have its world premiere in October 2007 at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival.  He has recently begun work on a visual novelization of his travels throughout Europe based on personal video archives created on the road.

Morgan was a fellow at the Latino Producers Academy in 2007. He was accepted to the 2006 Sundance Producers Conference with this project.  His short film, ELKE'S VISIT, was an official selection of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Prior to that, he worked in commercial production in Spain with the likes of Isabel Coixet, Julio Medem, Bruno Delbonnell and Seamus McGarvey.

Morgan's band EASY, with DJ Lippo, produced several critically acclaimed records for Cosmos Records. Their videos, directed and produced by Dews, aired on Spain´s TV3. EASY performed live throughout Spain and at Sónar, Barcelona's International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Arts. During this period Dews also worked in fine art; engravings with master engraver Tristan Barbarà, interactive lo-tec installations, and video installation.  He was a recipient of The Moebius Art Prize for Interactive Art.

In 1995, Dews founded and ran the THE BANANA FACTORY, an underground art and culture space in Barcelona´s Born neighborhood. He is the founding editor of SNACK, a bilingual art and literary magazine, and is the author of numerous articles for literary and arts magazines and newspapers.

Morgan currently resides in New York City´s West Village, where he lives with his fiancé Sarah, and their Brooklyn born cat, Leroy. 

Alison Palmer Bourke - bio

Prior to launching her company, LaRue Productions, Emmy-nominated executive producer Alison Palmer Bourke worked at the Independent Film Channel, where she held a variety of positions during her ten-year tenure at the network. As IFC’s vice president of documentaries & features, she served as executive producer for IFC’s original non-fiction features, specials and series.

Ms. Bourke’s films include THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, a controversial expose on the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings system from Academy Award® nominated director Kirby Dick and an official selection in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival; FABULOUS!  THE STORY OF QUEER CINEMA, a new take on queer film and culture from award-winning filmmakers Lesli Klainberg and Lisa Ades that premiered at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival; THE BRIDGE, a stunning and controversial documentary from director Eric Steel that had it’s world premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival; and YO SOY BORICUA, PA’QUE TU LO SEPAS! (I'm a Boriqua, Just So You Know), a film about Puerto Rican identity and culture, which marks the directorial debut of Rosie Perez and had its premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

Other projects Ms. Bourke developed while at IFC include Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, directed by Xan Cassavetes, an official selection in the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and named one of the top five documentaries by the National Board of Review; and A DECADE UNDER THE INFLUENCE, directed by Richard LaGravenese and Ted Demme, which was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Special in 2004 and won the 2003 National Board of Review William K. Everson Award for Film History.  She also served as executive producer on SLASHER, a John Landis documentary that looks at the strange world of used car ‘slasher’ sales and IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN, which explores the role of women in independent film and premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.  Ms. Bourke also served as executive producer for three seasons on the critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated series DINNER FOR FIVE, created and hosted by Jon Favreau.

Ms. Bourke’s latest venture is LaRue Productions, a New York based company dedicated to the development and production of documentary and non-fiction feature films, specials and series.  As part of LaRue’s development deal with IFC, Ms. Bourke will serve as executive producer on films with acclaimed directors Mike Mills (THUMBSUCKER) and Steve James (HOOP DREAMS, STEVIE).  Mike Mill’s most recent documentary, DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE A COLD? had it’s world premiere in March at the 2007 SXSW Film Festival. Ms. Bourke is currently working with acclaimed director Eric Steel (THE BRIDGE) on his latest documentary, I AM NOT AN ELEPHANT and has several projects in development with producer Steve Reiss including THE END OF SUMMER: In Search of Surfing’s Soul, that explores the pollution of our greatest nature resource, the ocean, through the lens of surfing.