World-renowned Filmmaker Henry Corra of Corra Films, best known for his unique brand of nonfiction “Living Cinema,” is currently working on an incredibly compelling new documentary project entitled “Unlocked.” In and around St. Augustine, Florida, teenagers and young adults are connecting to the world in a way no one around them thought possible, including their parents and families. A group of severe autistics are speaking their first words. They have lived their entire lives in a kind of exile, unable to translate thoughts into speech. “Unlocked” is a film about the journey of walking out of this prison into the bright sunlight.
With “Unlocked,” Director Henry Corra attempts to reach the supposedly unreachable with his unique brand of nonfiction filmmaking. Somewhat of a follow-up to his HBO film “George,” made with and about his own autistic son, Corra believes his true ability is “to connect with people – any kind of person – on film.”
To view the teaser for “Unlocked,” on Vimeo go here: https://vimeo.com/295246914
For Corra, “Unlocked” is as much a laboratory as a film. “With our way of working, our methodology and philosophy, we’ve created an aesthetic platform that promotes empathy for our characters, and a way to take them seriously on their own terms,” he explains. “These young people have a lot to say, and we’re helping them to use film language to say it. Hopefully, with the debut of this film next year, they will be heard.”
For years, it was conventional wisdom that the form of autism the film’s subjects suffer from precluded all forms of communication. Doctors and caregivers assumed the idea of communication – of forming complex thoughts and making them known to others – was an impossibility. The families of the people documented in “Unlocked” have discovered that although these young people cannot speak coherently, what they can do is type. Sitting at a keyboard, their thoughts come pouring out, a lifetime of previously unheard utterances forming a deluge. The results are staggering.
As Lanier, one of the major characters in the film, put it in her first typed message: “I am here. I have always been in here. I have been jailed my entire life. Thank you for freeing my voice.”
Lanier’s mother Leslie Weed, a focus of the film and one of the Executive Producers currently raising finishing funds, says: “For 16 years, I talked to my daughter like she was a four-year-old.” Lanier had been diagnosed with autism when she was 18 months old. Soon after, doctors concluded that Lanier was severely mentally impaired. Leslie admits that when she first learned about this technique, she was highly skeptical. But the results literally spoke for themselves. “My God, I realized, she’s been trapped in there her entire life,” recollects Leslie.
Meeting Corra through mutual friends was another unbelievable moment, notes Weed. “I had heard of Henry for years, but when I met him and he listened to our story, he said this needed to be a film. At first, I didn’t really know what that meant or entailed. But we all trusted that Henry, because of his own experience with his son George, really understood what we were experiencing. We all trusted him to tell our children’s stories.” “Unlocked” chronicles the experiences of the Weeds and several other families, interweaving their stories.
Corra’s energy proved to be a perfect match for the young subjects of the film, who are just beginning to forge their way into adulthood. No matter who he’s filming, from CEOs to teenagers, he says he gives the same effort and passion to finding true, honest moments, which leads subjects to let their guards down even further. “There are no mistakes when we’re filming,” notes Corra. “Everyone can truly be themselves.”
“Unlocked” is more than a film, it is a meditation on the nature of belief and the primal desire of all of us to connect and communicate with others. As a Director, Corra is always embedding underlying messages about what he’s doing. There are times when he almost pushes it to the limit, a kind of pressure-cooker creativity in its pace and timbre. It has its own particular sense of humor, as well.
As part of his Living Cinema approach, Corra eschews the “verité” approach favored by traditional documentaries, instead collaborating with his subjects so everyone plays an active role in deciding how the film will unfold. One way that this unique improvisational approach worked out on “Unlocked” was that the filmmakers faced an unusual challenge – the subjects couldn’t travel more than a mile or so from their usual schedule without risking a meltdown, and there were no traditional places to film in that radius. What to do?
Corra and his team embraced a striking visual vocabulary, building a fully functional studio right in the bonus room of the group home that the subjects lived in. This black-box approach eliminates sensory overload for the film’s subjects – “a connection space,” as Corra calls it – in which the characters type their thoughts. As they do, the words scroll in large type across screens suspended in front of them, a subtle amplification of their voices. “What it boils down to is a desire to try and find a deep connection with another human being, the difficulties of that, sometimes the impossibilities of it. And yet, it can happen,” says Corra.
“Unlocked” is currently in its final production phase, and will be entering postproduction this spring 2019, with plans for a debut of the film in 2020.
In addition to working on “Unlocked,” 2018 was a particularly busy year for Corra and his production company Corra Films, based in New York. The Corra Films team completed two PSA campaigns for NYC Department of Health, entitled “Smoking = Suffering” and “Living Proof,” as well as an Enbrel commercial featuring Phil Mickelson. Corra collaborated closely with long-term client Mercedes on an MBUSA campaign “Tech Squad,” and shot and posted the “Every Ounce Counts” breastfeeding awareness campaign for Texas WIC. 2019 has proven no less busy with a reboot of their fundraising film for the Johnny Mac Soldiers Fund (in post-production now). https://vimeopro.com/corrafilmsinc/corra-films-recent-work/video/272423414
About Filmmaker Henry Corra
Henry Corra is an Emmy®-nominated American documentary filmmaker best known for pioneering what he calls "living cinema.” Corra’s films have been exhibited worldwide in theatrical venues and broadcast and streaming outlets such as HBO, Showtime, LOGO, CBS, PBS, vH1, Arte, Channel 4, Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Sundance and Fandor. His work has also been exhibited in museum and cultural venues internationally including MoMA, the Louvre, the National Gallery of Art, the Pacific Film Archive and the Smithsonian Institute, and is on permanent collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A Sundance and Tribeca Institute Fellow, he has also done episodic TV projects for broadcasters including MTV, VH1, Bravo, and the Sundance Channel. In addition to his film work, Corra has been singled out as one of the foremost directors of nonfiction commercials and advocacy advertising in America with groundbreaking campaigns for clients including the American Cancer Society, NYC Health, Mercedes Benz USA, Jet Blue, Starbucks and Google.
Corra’s work is characterized by a deep and intense relationship with his subjects, his painterly eye, and his novelist sensibility. His first feature, the award-winning Umbrellas (PBS/Arte, 1995), shows the deep passions of the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude on a world stage and the inherently dramatic and at times painful consequences of their work. With George (HBO, 2000), made with and about his autistic son, he created a unique cinematic language that dramatized their relationship and confronted preconceived notions of autism. Same Sex America (Showtime, 2005), captures a watershed moment in civil rights history through the eyes of seven gay couples trying to marry. NY77: the Coolest Year in Hell (VH1, 2007) was Emmy®-nominated for Outstanding Arts & Cultural Programming. Jack (2009) is a road movie that’s a loving and poetic portrait of a full-blown alcoholic that challenges conventional ideas about addiction. The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan (short-listed for the Independent Spirit Award, 2010) follows the Nolan family from the cotton belt of Texas, to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, to the killing fields of Cambodia and unfolds as a mysterious fever dream. His latest genre-breaking work, Farewell to Hollywood (theatrical release, 2015), is a nonfiction fairytale about love, death, art, holding on and letting go.
About Corra Films
Our company was founded in 1994 by Filmmaker Henry Corra, a protégé of documentary pioneers the Maysles Brothers. Corra‘s work has inspired a generation of nonfiction filmmakers. Under his direction, we are a passionate ensemble of New York’s most innovative talent. Our films are seen by millions around the world: in theaters, on television, streaming video, and across the web. They provoke profound engagement and dialogue. We make groundbreaking and award-winning nonfiction features. We help the top global brands define themselves with real people, TV commercials and digital content. We lead the charge on the most urgent advocacy campaigns. And, always, we help powerfully unique individuals leave lasting and timeless legacies.
