Derreck Roemer and Face2Face host David Peck talk about his new film Come Clean, about addiction and mental health, recovery and misconceptions, statistics and stigma, friendship, healing, codependency and why recovery and community are connected.

Trailer

Watch it on TVO, TVO.org, YouTube and TVO streaming channels.

Synopsis:

Come Clean is a close look at what fuels addiction, as well as the herculean effort and hope recovery demands. Six million Canadians will meet the criteria for addiction in our lifetimes. COVID-19 has intensified the problem. Opioid-related deaths surged 25% in Ontario in the first few months of the pandemic and continue to be at a crisis point.

“The reality of addiction seriously impacts individuals, families and communities across Ontario,” says John Ferri, VP of Programming and Content at TVO. “With unflinching honesty, Come Clean shares the real struggle of overcoming addictions through deeply personal journeys—stories that most Ontarians will relate to.”

Written and directed by Derreck Roemer and Neil Graham of Insurgent Projects (Last Call at the Gladstone Hotel, The Lost Highway), TVO Original Come Clean begins on New Year’s Eve in the southwestern Ontario farming community of Thamesville, home to Westover Treatment Centre. Cameras roll as the dozen addicts in group 1313 embark on 19 days of in-treatment counselling. With intimate and unfettered access, the filmmakers embedded round-the-clock at Westover, living alongside the program participants. Post-treatment, filming followed select subjects’ stories for 18 months to experience their realities and see who among them could break the habits that landed them in rehab.

About Derreck:

Toronto-based filmmaking duo Derreck Roemer and Neil Graham have worked together for over 20 years, producing and directing everything from shorts to feature-length documentaries. In late 2000, the pair began work on Last Call at the Gladstone Hotel, a film that premiered to critical acclaim and sold-out screenings at the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival, then played festivals worldwide before television broadcasts in Canada and elsewhere. The film garnered Roemer and Graham a Gemini Award for best direction in a documentary series, as part of TVO's documentary anthology The View From Here. In 2009, Graham and Roemer formed Insurgent Projects, and in 2014 released the Canadian Screen Award best-doc-nominee The Lost Highway. In 2018, TVO commissioned Roemer and Graham to create Come Clean.

Image Copyright and Credit: Derreck Roemer and TVO.

F2F Music and Image Copyright: David Peck and Face2Face. Used with permission.

For more information about David Peck’s podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.

With thanks to Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

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