Sarasota filmmaker launches new company with movie about mental health

Jay Handelman, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
·5 min read
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For more than 25 years, KT Curran told stories with important messages for the kind of young people she worked with at Source Productions, first in stage plays and later on film

But like many of the actors she has worked with, Curran has been growing up as a writer and filmmaker and has set a new path while continuing to tell issue-related stories.

Two years ago, she launched her own non-profit company, Wingspan Productions, which makes its local debut this weekend at the 25th Sarasota Film Festival, which will screen her new feature “Bridge to the Other Side.”

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Chase Garland and Valerie LeBlanc plays members of crisis response team helping with mental health challenges in the film “Bridge to the Other Side.”
Chase Garland and Valerie LeBlanc plays members of crisis response team helping with mental health challenges in the film “Bridge to the Other Side.”

Curran wrote and directed the film, working with producer Jerry Chambless, who has collaborated with her on several projects. It was filmed mostly in and around Sarasota (with some shots in Cape Coral) and features many scenes at local beaches and on the Ringling Bridge.

“Bridge” is about a new crisis response team assigned by a fire department chief to work with first responders in dealing with mental health issues on calls, when people who are acting erratically, threatening to harm themselves or others, may need interventions other than arrest. It also looks at the struggles of police, firefighters, paramedics, nurses, doctors and others in dealing with traumas they witness on the job, particularly during the COVID pandemic.

“The movie is about mental health and post-pandemic and grief and surviving loss,” Curran said. “But it’s also about hope and resilience.”

Curran has dealt with a wide variety of public health and safety concerns in her projects, from AIDS (“Joel’s Story”), teen smoking and sex (“The First Time Club”) to drug abuse (“When the Party Ends”) and bullying in schools (“Surviving Lunch”).

Storytelling with a message

KT Curran is the writer and director of the film “Bridge to the Other Side.”
KT Curran is the writer and director of the film “Bridge to the Other Side.”

Curran describes herself as an activist who focuses on important issues through her stories. “I tend to be drawn to the dark shadows of life, and I look at how I can highlight the great difficulties we face in society through storytelling,” she said. “We have all globally experienced this pandemic, with more than one million dead. How do we move forward? I didn’t feel that we could move forward until Wingspan had dealt with that.”

The film’s story is triggered by the death of a paramedic, whose grieving wife, Max, is spiraling downward until she joins the new crisis response team as a counselor as she’s drinking herself to sleep to block out her sorrow.

It stars Atlanta-based actress Valerie LeBlanc as Max, who is partnered with Chase Garland as Jake Monroe, who is facing his own issues and demons. Sai Piňa plays Max’s late husband, Gabe, in flashback sequences. ABC7 meteorologist John Scalzi, who had a significant role in “Surviving Lunch,” portrays the fire department chief who oversees the crisis team. Numerous Sarasota area actors make appearances, including Kathryn Michelle Tanner, Kathryn Parks, Brian L. Boyd, Gabriel Ortiz, Jae Hermann, Sunny Smith, Alyssa Baker, Nya Chambless and Amber McNew. Former SNN anchorman Grant Boxleitner plays a similar role in the film.

Film Festival Circuit

“Bridge to the Other Side” has been featured at 11 other film festivals prior to Sarasota, helping to bring awareness to issues raised in the movie. In May, Curran will be attending a mental health conference in Nashville, and she is taking part in a screening for first responders at the Resilient Retreat in Sarasota.

“We’re using it as a way to reduce stigma,” she said.

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Valerie LeBlanc plays the widow of a paramedic and struggling through her grief in KT Curran’s film “Bridge to the Other Side.”
Valerie LeBlanc plays the widow of a paramedic and struggling through her grief in KT Curran’s film “Bridge to the Other Side.”

Curran had planned on a theatrical distribution deal for “Surviving Lunch” before the pandemic made that a challenge after movie theaters were closed.

“We were able to luckily get it on Amazon Prime and thousands of people were watching it and we were making some money,” she said. “If this new movie could be picked up by Amazon or Netflix, funds from that could go into the next project. It’s not about getting rich, it’s about saving the world and you can reach such a wide audience with streaming.”

With “Bridge,” she also hopes to arrange a national tour “taking it to firehouses or crisis response teams. That’s happening in a small way with festivals because people invite firefighters and paramedics.”

Taking Wing

Filming of “Bridge to the Other Side” was done primarily in and around Sarasota, with some scenes shot in Cape Coral.
Filming of “Bridge to the Other Side” was done primarily in and around Sarasota, with some scenes shot in Cape Coral.

“Bridge to the Other Side” was shot over three weeks during the height of the Omicron variant. “We figured by the time we filmed the pandemic would be over, and then we had to outrun Omicron,” she said. “We had to have nurses come in and test everyone. It was terrifying.”

There will be two screenings during the Sarasota Film Festival, which runs March 24-April 2. The first, at 6 p.m. March 26 at CMX CinéBistro Siesta Key, is sold out. The second is at 2 p.m. April 1 at the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium. (For ticket information, go to sarasotafilmfestival.com.)

The film represents the first major project of Wingspan Productions, which she hopes will launch new projects each year “that tackle the zeitgeist of our time, similar to Source, but with a broader perspective, encompassing not just teens but all ages. Some might be purely entertainment, but always with the goal of helping the world be a better place,” Curran said.

The organization received major, multiyear funding from Dick Orenstein and the Daniel E. Offutt, III Charitable Trust, who is credited as the founding donor. “That allowed us to create the infrastructure we needed.” Wingspan also received funds from Here4YOUth Mental Health Initiative, a collaboration between the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation and Gulf Coast Community Foundation.

Spending two years on a film about mental health, grief and surviving loss, Curran said it has been “hard to keep my hope alive, even though the movie is about hope and resilience. Maybe my next movie will be about love, sweet relationships with a small cast.”

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota film,aker tackles mental health in ‘Bridge to the Other Side’