(1 x 7’)

Festival Release

Made in 2008, released in 2013.

A personal self-portrait exploring the immediate emotional experience of getting clean from drug addiction, made from hundreds of hours of home video footage across 25 years. 

The second of three films in a self-portrait trilogy exploring childhood trauma manifesting in adulthood (The first film, award winning ‘The Ungrateful Australian’ and the third, critically acclaimed ‘How to Lose Jobs & Alienate Girlfriends’).

It was early 2008, ‘I was 26 years old and two years clean. I was in the middle of doing step six of the twelve steps and my sponsor said to get creative. So I made a film. I literally took all of the footage I had and poured every emotion onto the screen relating to the experience of doing step six’. 

The original title of the film was actually ‘Step Six’, ‘And the only intended audience was my sponsor, Dave H. It sat on the shelf until 2012 when I decided to submit it to festivals’. The title was changed to ‘grace’ for the sake of anonymity. ‘However I think its true origin is important context for the film. It’s a pure, instinctively created cinematic manifestation of step six (effectively the painful build up to a precipice right before surrender, and significant change). It was made from the gut and the heart. I am most proud of this pure and honest expression’.

‘grace’ enjoyed at worldwide festival run playing at the Warsaw Film Festival, Byron Bay International Film Festival, St Louis International Film Festival, San Fransisco Short Fest and the biggest short film festival in the world, the Palm Springs International Shortfest.

‘Your film reminds me f the kinds of things I fantasize about producing, so I salute you for actually doing it’ – Joe Williams, St Louis Post Dispatch