It’s hard to tell whether film and television producers are making more projects focusing on Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of dementia, but there are certainly a number of dementia-related projects in the IMDB.com database.
In recent years, Michael Haneke has come out with Amour, a film about a caregiver in Paris who suffers what U.S. health policy analysts might describe as “substantial negative consequences” of caregiving.
Jake Schreier directed Robot & Frank, an independent film about an aging cat burglar with memory problems who has a robot as a caregiver.
This year, IMDB has a wide range of listings for projects described as being “in production.”
Many filmmakers operate on a dollar-store shoestring. Long-term care (LTC) planners who want to get the concept of long-term care insurance (LTCI) or other LTC planning ideas into an independent film might be able to do so for a modest amount of cash and some help with finding people to watch the film.
For the Long-Term Care Awareness Month starting Nov. 1, organizing a simple screening of a single dementia-related video in a library or meeting room might be a good alternative to an ordinary LTC planning seminar. For the 2015 awareness month, organizing an entire festival of films featuring dementia, people who need care, and caregivers might be another possibility.
LTC planners who think bringing the makers of an independent dementia-related film to a community would be good for publicity may find that all they need to do to lure the filmmakers is to book a screening room and help pay the travel costs.
Here’s a look at a sampling of four of the dementia-related projects — including one with strong support from people who are organizing the Long-Term Care Awareness Month outreach campaign that starts Nov. 1.
It Snows All the Time
Director: Jay Giannone.
Stars: Taryn Manning, Tatyana Ali, Lesley Ann Warren.
The makers of this film are using crowdsourcing to pay some of the production costs, and they have raised much of that money from the LTCI community.
One of the executive producers is Jonas Roeser, the president of the 3in4 Association — one of the groups organizing the awareness month effort.