LETTERS FROM GENERATION RX: A NEW FILM — DEDICATED TO YOU
You or loved one is suffering under the diagnosis of ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia, or depression. You’ve done everything the doctors have instructed – from a mind-boggling array of medications to perhaps even an aggressive regimen of electro-convulsive therapy, but you or your loved one continues to slip further into darkness.
You are frightened – fearful of the life you – or they may have to lead.
What would you do – accept the condition as fait accompli, or search the world to find a cure?
It is a question millions face every day.
In his previous film, Generation Rx, international award-winning writer/director Kevin P. Miller explored how frighteningly narrow the treatment options are, and why the science being used as the rationale for treating millions with mental health conditions often falls so desperately short. Miller’s work prompted famed Hollywood Director Paul Haggis, the only person in the past half century to win an Academy Award® in consecutive years, to endorse his groundbreaking film. But more importantly, Miller received thousands of letters from real people: mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers of those who had labored under the influence of psychiatric drugs for many years.
It was then that he decided to produce one final documentary on the topic, and call it Letters From Generation Rx — in homage to the thousands who wrote to him following the release of Generation Rx.
The new film is designed to spur an international conversation about mental illness, and to exorcise any unnecessary fears that ADHD, bipolar, and other mental health diagnoses may have wrought. Miller spent two years interviewing some of the world’s most respected researchers, MDs, journalists, politicians, and academics, and focused on dozens of others whose lives became inextricably linked to the medications they were prescribed. In doing so, the director features a breathtaking array of stories, from those who lost it all – to those who came back from the brink of agony and angst and desperation to a place of true wellness.
Miller’s conclusion: there is hope for those suffering, and it may not lie in the toxic elixirs we have come to know by name. Rather, there are remedies and therapies being overlooked, to our detriment.
While the film does include stories of violence and addiction – a side effect of both the illnesses and the medications prescribed to treat them – Miller weaves together an astonishing tapestry of highly personal stories from those who overcame the worst that mental illness could dish out, but who still made their way to wellness.
In the end, Letters From Generation Rx could change how many of us view mental health. By employing powerful personal stories and credible, easy-to-understand science, the film shows how the cavalier use of psychotropics created an avalanche of unintended medical and societal consequences — and why the use of less invasive methods often combats the worst mental illness can dish out.
Letters From Generation Rx is where darkness meets light and science meets truth. Like Generation Rx before it, this film will be essential viewing for those interested in an intelligent conversation about both the causes of mental illness and the treatments that are being deployed in the latest battle for the brain.
Kevin P. Miller is an international award winning Writer, Producer and Director whose films The Promised Land, The War Within, Kids in Crisis and more have won numerous international Film and Television awards. Academy Award® winner Paul Haggis called his film Generation Rx “a powerful and often chilling eye-opener
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