A panel discussion following the screening will examine issues raised in the film.
This groundbreaking HBO series teams some of America’s foremost experts on the vexing problem of addiction with some of the most talented documentary filmmakers working. The result, Addiction, is a riveting spotlight on the deep wounds, scars, and battles affecting the growing numbers of people plagued with addictions, especially to drugs and alcohol. In A Mother’s Desperation by Grey Gardens co-filmmaker Albert Maysles and Susan Froemke, a Pittsburgh mom is wrung nearly dry in her frantic attempt to keep her daughter alive through her horrifying addiction to opiates.
At one point, she resorts to having her arrested: the ultimate in tough love. Other segments look at the devastation wreaked by alcohol, that most sanctioned of social drugs, and how people in varying social and economic strata have tried (and in some cases, failed) to overcome their heart-breaking diseases.