Always Chasing Love

The journey of making this film began in 2003, with a digital camera that is currently obsolete but was relevant at that time. Due to numerous technological setbacks and personnel hurdles that exceeded the budget, such as losing main cast and crew personnel due to sudden health and lifestyle issues and losing the entire edited film and works in progress due to hard drive crashes, post production was an arduous 11 year process. While the image of this film present with significant less lines of resolution than today's digital cameras offer, I hope this niche movie finally reach those it was made for.

While working in the social service industry as a professional advocate for people with developmental disabilities, I was inspired to make a film that would showcase people communicating in sign language. I wanted to create a show that would present sign language as it is -- a language as useful and important as any spoken language. I wanted to create entertaining and educational content that would create a specific awareness for the general public, but specifically for people with speech challenges and those who care for them (parents, educators and my fellow advocates).

Due to speech and language challenges, many of my former clients struggled with speech, even to express basic wants and needs. For some clients, this would often lead to anxiety, frustration and even behavior harmful to others or themselves. I attended many meetings at schools, agencies, therapeutic programs and residential facilities, to advocate for clients to receive educational and therapeutic services that would enhance their ability to self-advocate. Needless to say, sign language was hardly an option.

After observing two ladies conversing in sign language at a restaurant (Canters in Los Angeles), I began suggesting and recommending sign language for my clients who were speech challenged. However, I was met with great resistance. Several parents refused to permit their child/ren learn sign language, because they believed the language only appropriate for "those [handicap] people," not their children, even though their child/ren speaking ability was greatly impaired by a diagnosed disability, such as autism, selective mutism, and so on.

While feeling disappointed about the lack of available resources that could explain sign language as a language beneficial for any and everyone, one day I took a chance and taught one of my adult clients, who lived at a group home, to communicate his name and ask for water in sign language. I did this to see if he could learn and use the language appropriately, considering there was no history of him ever been taught the language. The client was 23-years-old, autistic, and could only vocalize "Papa" and had a long history of being violent when his needs were not gratified.

When I met with the client two weeks later, to test his ability to use the sign language I had taught him, I approached and asked him, in American Sign Language (ASL), for a glass of water and to say his name. He signed his name and retrieved me a glass of water from the kitchen. Needless to say, I was elated and inspired, while the group home's owner and staffers were in disbelief. It was this moment I committed to finishing the making of this movie.

While inspired to create Always Chasing Love to showcase ASL, the story was inspired by family members, friends, acquaintances, and foster care clients who struggled with identity, grief, depression, shame, abandonment, rejection and heartbreak. To date, I am very excited by the responses I have received about this film from those whom have screened it, including some of the people who inspired the story.