Film and Funder Descriptions

Four descriptions of the film
Version 1 (200 words)
Almost Home rescues from an exile of denial the real stories of aging that lie in the vast middle between the uber-heroic octogenarian marathoner and the feeble geriatric that most Americans fear becoming. A feature length, cinema-verité film shot on location in a continuing care community that boasts a nursing home transforming its medical (think hospital) model of care into a holistic one (think home), Almost Home is a stunningly intimate film that combines the institution's struggle to shake the nursing home stigma with tender, sometimes difficult, stories of people who live, work and visit there. The film follows one couple bonded by Alzheimer's and another divided by Parkinson's; children torn between caring for their parents and caring for their children; nursing assistants doing unsavory work for poverty wages while juggling precarious lives at home; healthy elders fearful of moving to the dreaded nursing home; and a visionary nursing home director trying to transform a century-old hospital-like institution into a true home. It all adds up to a dramatic and surprising story about aging where that grips you from the start, never flinches from reality — good and bad — and offers hope where you might have thought there was none.

Version 2 (162 words)
Almost Home is a feature-length, cinema verité film that rescues the real stories of aging from an exile of denial. Shot over the course of a year at a retirement community in America's Midwest, Almost Home follows one couple bonded by their struggle with Alzheimer's and another divided by the challenges of Parkinson's; children who are torn between caring for their parents and caring for their own children; nursing assistants who must do unsavory work for poverty wages while juggling precarious lives at home; healthy elders who fear the day they may have to move to the dreaded nursing home; and a visionary nursing home director who feverishly works to alleviate such fear by transforming the impersonal, regimented hospital-like institution into a warm "home" that promotes autonomy and inspires independence rather than fear. Almost Home delivers a dramatic and surprising story about aging that grips you from the start, never flinches from reality, and offers hope where many think there is none.

Version 3 (93 words)
Almost Home, a feature-length, cinema verité film, rescues the real stories of aging from an exile of denial. A stunningly intimate documentary shot on location in a nursing home, Almost Home tells the unflinchingly honest stories of couples both bonded and divided by disability and dementia, children torn between caring for their parents and caring for their children, nursing assistants doing unsavory work for poverty wages, healthy elders fearful of moving to the dreaded nursing home, and a visionary nursing home director committed to transforming his century-old hospital-like institution into a true home.

Version 4 (45 words)
Almost Home is a stunningly intimate feature-length, cinema verité film that follows the stories of residents, families and workers in a Midwestern nursing home as they struggle with the personal challenges of aging while trying to transform their century-old hospital-like institution into a true home.

Two descriptions of the funders
Use this paragraph when crediting the film only:
ALMOST HOME is a co-production of 371 Productions and Wisconsin Public Television, produced in association with ITVS, with funding provided by the Helen Bader Foundation; The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; The Faye McBeath Foundation; and support from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts.

Use this paragraph when crediting both the film and the outreach campaign (for instance, if advertising an outreach screening):
ALMOST HOME is a co-production of 371 Productions and Wisconsin Public Television, produced in association with ITVS, with funding provided by the Helen Bader Foundation; The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation; The Retirement Research Foundation; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; The Faye McBeath Foundation; and support from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts and Center on Age and Community.