Help the REEL Recovery Film Festival Go Virtual

WE NEED YOUR HELP
Calling all film buffs, recovering addicts, alcoholics and the sober-curious.  How's everyone out there  in the Corona-verse?  My name is Ahbra Schiff and I am the film curator at the Reel Recovery Film Festival & Symposium - now the Virtual Reel Recovery Film Festival and we need your help. 

Twelve - years ago Leonard Buschel, drug counselor and cinephile had an idea (lightbulb); to create an experience for people in recovery who love the arts. What started as an event for newly and long-time sober people to see classic films dealing with drugs and alcohol, has blossomed into the 7 day New York and  the 7 day Los Angeles Reel Recovery Film Festival . The week-long event includes music, comedy , talks and panels by leading members of the addiction recovery community and interviews with filmmakers.  

The Reel Recovery Film Festival  has consistently offered both filmmakers and attendees  a safe and nurturing place to share their stories and experiences of substance abuse and mental illness, issues that continue to be steeped in stigma and ignorance. These are important films that affect millions of people across the US.  While the focus is on Covid-19, families are destroyed and lives are lost to drugs, alcohol and untreated mental health problems.  But there is hope and recovery, too.  With your help we can inform, entertain and enlighten audiences around the world.




Unable to gather in darkened movie theaters and sit shoulder to shoulder, watching raw, honest films while sharing popcorn and holding unwashed hands.  (Some of you may be gasping in horror right now). We are no longer confined to the seating capacity of a theater.  

To make the Virtual Reel Recovery Film Festival a reality we have partnered with Film Festival Flix a platform committed to connecting quality films with interested audiences.   Available online, and streaming on  Roku, SmartTV, and AppleTV.  Film Festival Flix is powered by Mousetrap Films, LLC

The money raised will be used to take the film festival from the multiplex to your living room, treatment center,  computer or sober living.
With over 350 films in our library and more arriving daily,  funds from the campaign will help to digitize and upload films and cover start up costs.  These are important films that with what some are calling "The other Pandemic"

7th Annual Reel Recovery Film Festival - New York 2019


New York Reel Recovery Film Festival & Symposium


2018 Filmmaker interviews - one of the highlights of the event