ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
For over a decade, The Goodness Tour has brought their self taught art therapy modalities of painting, music, and film worldwide. ART IS LIFE interweaves on-site footage from Goodness Tours in Jordan, Ukraine, Cuba, and the Bahamas with global expert interviews, exploring the science and techniques behind how Art can transform the Mind.

SYNOPSIS
ART IS LIFE weaves pivotal, transformative moments in the decade long history of The Goodness Tour, and their boots-on-the-ground, organically-formed art therapy techniques, with interviews of well known and accomplished artists, scientists, and therapists. We will include video from Tours we have participated in the Bahamas, Ukraine/Poland, Cuba and more. Our goal is to help illuminate the practice and success of these creative art therapy modalities, especially with survivors of trauma and/or crisis. We wish to harness and merge the heart centered real world footage from The Goodness Tour, who initiated these techniques from intuition without realizing the science and clinical techniques behind them, with clinicians and researchers who will provide background and scientific data supporting Expressive Arts Therapies.

We are gathering a diverse group of notable scientist, therapists & artists to interview. Included are Dr. Juliet L. King, PhD, ATR-BC, LPC, LMHC Art Therapy & Neuroscience Associate Professor of Art Therapy; The George Washington University, Adjunct Associate Professor Neurology; IU School of Medicine. She is the author of a very impactful book,: Art Therapy, Trauma, and Neuroscience: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives, and is at the forefront of bridging the gap between neuroscience and art therapy. Renowned experts like Stephen K. Levine, Ph.D., who is the Chair of Philosophy and Poetics in the Arts, Health and Society Division of the European Graduate School. Bessel van der Kolk, MD, who did the first studies on the effects of SSRIs on PTSD, was a member of the first neuro-imaging team to investigate how trauma changed brain processes, and did the first research linking BPD and deliberate self-injury to trauma and neglect in early childhood. Dr. Chez Leeby, a distinguished family therapist with extensive training and experience in trauma resolution, grief recovery, and soul healing. Melinda Ashley Meyer, Ph.D., a bioenergetics-therapist at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies and the Director and Co-founder of the Norwegian Institute for Expressive Art and Communication. Artists and activists like platinum selling, multiple Grammy winner Jason Mraz and minister, author, Michael Bernard Beckwith.

In addition, The Goodness Tour is planning a 10 year anniversary Tour in the fall, in multiple locations around N. America, which we will film and include in the documentary. We are also seeking to legally change the US definition of “First Responder” to include work such as ours in the Expressive Arts Therapy field. We will be using the film to reach out to politicians and policy makers to see if they would get behind this cause.

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Short

DIRECTOR Jeremiah A. Verdecias
SCREENWRITER Benjamin Swatez
PRODUCER Lisa McCarthy
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Jeremiah A. Verdecias
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Luc Reynaud
IMPACT PRODUCER Jayson Jackson

WEBSITE TheGoodnessTour.org

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