Join us at thegreatnowwhat.com
Music
An empty chair sits on an empty theater stage looking out over an empty audience.
Text:
In the USA
Someone has a stroke every 40 seconds.
Text:
Stroke kills 2x as many women as breast cancer.
[A young white woman walks with a cane into the frame, sits on the chair, and turns her head to look out over the empty audience.]
Text:
There are over 7 million stroke survivors.
Text:
Only 10% of them make a full recovery.
Text:
As a result
Stroke is the #1 cause of long-term disability.
[A beautiful photo of a smiling blonde white woman sits on a white table. A pair of hands reaches in and rips up the photograph.]
Text:
More than half of survivors live with chronic pain.
[A white woman walks with a cane outside Union Station in Denver in the winter. She sits on a bench and looks ahead.]
Text:
Since chronic pain is invisible
[A nude Barbie with long flowing blonde hair lays on a white table. A hand holding electric clippers shaves most of the hair off.]
Text:
Many survivors are disbelieved and go misdiagnosed or not treated at all.
[A pair of hands wraps dozens of rubber bands around the left leg and arm of another nude Barbie.
A white woman sits on a train looking out the window.]
Text: Maggie makes art to communicate her pain.
[A pair of hands place vice grips on the left leg of another nude Barbie. A pair of hands wraps gray clay around the left side of another nude Barbie.]
Text:
Art legitimizes
[A right hand paints another nude Barbie with multicolor flames and then covers the flames in black.]
Text:
Art restores
[A right hand paints rubber cement over the same photograph of a smiling blonde white woman. Then the hand places the ripped up shreds of another photo on top of the photo.]
Text:
Art empowers
Text:
Art gives a voice to many who suffer in silence.
[An outline of a human form with electricity running through the left side. An outline of a human form with jagged lines running through the left side. A pair of hands use scissors to scrape cuts through the same photo of a smiling blonde white woman. A hand holds the photo over a flame burning holes through the cuts.]
Text:
Art heals Pain.
[A tea light candle with the ashes of the photograph around it. The white woman sits on a chair on an empty stage looking out over an empty audience.]
Text and logo:
The Great Now What
Documentary Film
COMING SOON
[A pair of hands and the same photo of a smiling blonde white woman. The right hand writes with a sharpie marker over the face SHE is GONE.]
Join us at
thegreatnowwhat.com
*****
Surviving a stroke is just the beginning for a young actress who seemingly had it all. With the support of other trauma survivors and the healing power of art, she learns to get back on stage and perform in front of an audience again.
Feature Documentary
Created by Maggie Whittum & Lisa Donato
Director: Lisa Donato
Produced by Sparkle Motion Films
Edited by Jeffrey Schwinghammer
Cinematography by Robert Muratore
Song "Apollo" by Jinx McGee
JOIN OUR STROKE AND PAIN AWARENESS MOVEMENT: thegreatnowwhat.com