FIGHTING ADDICTION ON FILM
BINJ Comedy Fundraiser on North Shore for new Anti-Opiate Filmmaker Training Program with Johnny Hickey
Charlestown native Johnny Hickey, the star, writer, and director of the Boston indie anti-drug movie “Oxy Morons,” found salvation through filmmaking. This fall Hickey, along with his team from Moodswing Moving Pictures, is bringing the gospel of the reel to Massachusetts residents fighting for their lives against the opiate epidemic with FIGHT — the Filming Instead of Getting High Team.
Creative endeavors have a long history of smoothing the path for those on the road to recovery. FIGHT will serve as a vehicle for 18 to 25 year olds who have been directly affected by drug abuse. By giving people in recovery the filmmaking and journalistic skills to tell their stories, as well as those of the victims of the opiate epidemic around them, FIGHT offers creative solutions for coping with addiction and the recovery process while providing access to the all-important community service of reporting and storytelling. FIGHT will also provide opportunities for aspiring creatives and journalists to participate in front of and behind the camera.
In addition to serving as a mentorship program through which young people will learn about employment opportunities in the entertainment and media industries, the content produced by FIGHT will push the envelope for how the opiate crisis is covered in Greater Boston. Unlike the impersonal outsider approach taken by mainstream news outlets, the segments produced in our program will reveal the ugly underbelly of affairs to build awareness around the collateral damage of opiate abuse.
So that FIGHT material is disseminated as wide and as far as possible, in addition to distributing through their own film and web channels, for this project Hickey and Moodswing are collaborating with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ), which will distribute segments on television and radio, and also generate print and online versions of stories told by participants in recovery.
We hope you will buy tickets and help us map our course, attract funders who will keep FIGHT going, and in the shorter run complete our debut segment — a hard look at fitness and training as a stress reliever for recovering addicts with our first special guest, UFC fighter and Dorchester native John “Doomsday” Howard.
THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016 at KOWLOON in Saugus
7PM — 10PM (Comedy starts at 8PM)
With Comedy By …
PAUL VIRZI | GREG HOWELL | PATTY GOULD
