Suffer Little Children

Suffer Little Children is a documentary that exposes the harsh realities of New York City’s homeless family crisis, focusing on the thousands of children growing up in shelters. With homelessness at its highest level since the Great Depression, nearly 5% of NYC public school students sleep in shelters, and 20% of families are fleeing domestic violence.

This film cuts through stereotypes and media narratives to reveal the real stories behind the statistics. Through interviews with sociologists, social workers, shelter staff, and policymakers, Suffer Little Children seeks to uncover the root causes of this crisis and explore real solutions to get families into stable housing. This is a call to action for the most vulnerable residents of the so-called greatest city in the world.

In this film we are going to go deep into the world of NYC homeless family crisis. Why? Because not enough is being said and done to alleviate this curse on the most vulnerable citizens of what is supposed to be the greatest city in the world. I call BS.  We are going to talk to Sociologists, Social Workers, Shelter workers and Politicians to get to the bottom of what is going on and what is being done to get these kids out of the Shelters into low-cost housing. 

Too many New Yorker (and most people in general) lump all the unhoused into a single maniacal group of drug crazed psychopaths, who stab people on the subway. The press does nothing to dissuade people of this mindset, in face more often than not they fan the flames

In this documentary film we hope to show that no one chooses to be unhoused or live in a a shelter. For every family in a shelter or out on the street, there is a unique story that brought them to this point in their lives. We are going to tell those stories and hopefully in doing so, inform the uninformed about what is actually going on in out City.

Suffer Little Children… Not on my watch fella.

Please Help us ger this important film made.

Please consider Following/ Donating / sharing our Seed&Spark Campaign to get this film made.

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The Disposables is a documentary film that will shine a light on the devastating disorder of physician suicide that takes the lives of hundreds of physicians every year.

“400 doctors die by suicide annually and about ⅔ of all doctors admit to being burned out.”

This statistic is taken directly from the “Disposable Doctors” website. 

400 doctors.

That is roughly one fifth of all the graduating medical students in the state of New York in 2023. It’s slightly less than all of the graduating medical students in the District of Columbia, 486.

An average of four hundred doctors a year, across every specialty, every practice, fall victim to this mental health crisis.

According to “Vital Signs” a nonprofit aimed at ending physician suicide, an estimated one million persons in the U.S. lose their physician to suicide each year. 

It’s no accident. Doctors, from the time they enter medical school until they graduate, grind through a residency, a fellowship then licensing, by that time, they are saddled with so much debt and stress that it is not surprising that there is a mental health price to pay.

 But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Dr. Lorna Breen was an ER Doctor in New York city. In fact, she ran the ER at New York Presbyterian Hospital, which is one of the top ten Hospitals in New York City, it is also a level 1 trauma center. She was something very special. When Covid shut down NYC; Lorna, along with thousands of other frontline medical workers answered the City’s call and worked herself to exhaustion running back and forth between two ER units. Not to mention contracting COVID herself in the middle of all of this. She didn’t let that stop her, because the constant stream of infected New Yorkers didn’t stop. Lorna’s story is not a happy one. The toll that all of this took on her body and her mental health drove Dr. Lorna Breen to take her own life on April 26, 2020.

In this documentary film we will tell Lorna’s story. Not just because it was travesty and tragedy that such a talented and dedicated human being, with no prior mental health issues was driven to make the ultimate choice, but because of the unspoken culture of doctors keeping any kind of mental health issues to themselves for fear of losing their jobs, their practices, friends, colleagues and patients. It is a fact that the licensing boards throughout the country require disclosure by physicians of current or past mental health care (in some cases at any level), hospitals require disclosure for credentialing, and seeking mental health care is considered a sign of weakness amongst many medical professionals. (courtesy Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation)

Let’s not forget the enormous effect that our American healthcare system is having on our physicians across the board. “Physicians report that administrative burdens (eg, filling out forms, dealing with multiple formularies, prior authorization and network restrictions, and documenting quality metrics) are important contributors to burnout. Other factors include cumbersome electronic health records (EHRs), productivity pressures, long work hours, poor work-life balance, and loss of autonomy’ .National Library of Medicine

We will be exposing the politicians who are in the pockets of the insurance companies and hold them accountable as well.

We will be partnering with the Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation,  as well as  working with “The Disposables” and “Disappearing Doctors”, three nonprofit groups who are on the forefront of the horrible syndrome that is physician suicide. We will not only shine a light on this mostly un-talked about mental health emergency but hope to bring some of their efforts and solutions to the forefront.

We plan to speak with survivors, family members of those who have been lost, medical professionals both psychiatric and practicing physicians across a number of disciplines. All in the hopes of breaking down the how’s, why’s and causes of this crisis, and what can be done and what is being done by the larger medical community. In hopes of starting to make a dent in the culture of physician mental health silence and the resulting rash of physician suicide.

We will also expose the scam of pre-authorizations by utilizing whistleblowers and lawyers who are actively suing the insurance companies, to make them pay for the havoc they have played on the lives of patients and physicians alike.

With this documentary film we hope to bring the this syndrome of physician suicide to the public consciousness and, help open a path to accepted and normalized mental healthcare for physicians and put an end to the “Disappearing Doctors.”

We plan to show this film at various medical conferences and gatherings, film festivals as well as distribution on one of the major streaming platforms.

Rising Tides, is a documentary film that explores. the terrible toll climate change is taking on the Atlantic seaboard’s commercial fishing, the baymen their families and the local economies.

It’s been only eight years since the 2016 Paris climate accords and seven since Trump pulled the United States out of it, and then Biden put us back in. A lot has changed in that time. 2023 was the hottest year on record and it was marked by a staggering number of extreme weather events. The effect of this is a public awareness of the need to deal with climate change now. Unfortunately, we are drastically behind where we need to be to prevent the worst of what science tells us is coming.

Climate change is having a major impact on the major shell fishing industries on the Mid and Northern Atlantic coast. We will be going in depth to examine the effects on three groups of shell fishing communities tied to.

The Peconic Bay Scallops on Long Island New York

The Blue Crabs in Baltimore Maryland

This crisis is a larger issue than just the dying of the Peconic Bay Scallops, or the Blue Crabs in Maryland , but they are all indicators that Climate Change and Global Warming are the new reality, despite a large part of the population who still don’t believe it. That needs to change, and I hope this documentary will in some small way help that cause.

I grew up on Eastern Long Island and spent my youth at the beach, so this story is extremely personal to me. I know these people. I want to try and give something back.

It’s time for all of us, , to look at the immediate future and this coming election year. We need to get beyond partisan politics; climate change is THE global issue, and we need to start electing members of congress who will fight for climate change legislation right now, and not bow down to money from the Fossil Fuel Industry!.

2024… The year it all changes. Let’s make it change for the better.

RISING TIDES is the winner of the BEST FEATURE FILM at the 2024 Environmental Film & Screenplay Festival.

The Story

2020 was a year few of us will ever forget. Covid-19, an election year and a petulant bully in the White House who denied both. For many reasons that need to be explored, this man, his presidency, and Trumpism has taken a huge toll on the American Jewish community. Yes! There was a pandemic. Over four hundred thousand Americans died, mostly on “his watch”. Yes, Donald Trump lost the election by over seven million legal votes and seventy four electoral votes.

For those of us who experienced this turmoil unfolding, it was particularly disturbing to learn that a large number of American Jews voted for him. Reporting and surveys seem to indicate that the religious right wing of the Jewish Community as well as the “1%ers” stood firmly behind Trump. In 2016 more than 25% of the Jewish community (according to the Pew Research center) voted for Trump.

It didn’t take very long after the election for Trump’s true colors to be displayed. Charlottesville in 2017 was a defining moment for the world to see and hear who Donald Trump was and what he believed. It’s impossible to forget his words that day: “there were very fine people on both sides.” It was clear, at that moment, when he defended the behavior of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists what was to come. We were not dealing with a man who had the main – stream humanitarian values we expect from Presidents of these United States. That statement opened the flood gates for the Nazis, white supremacists and fascists to step up their game and leave the shadows they had been lurking in for years. The former Commander and Chief actually encouraged it and going forward, HE gave them a platform.

After four years of hate speech, immigration atrocities, countless incidences of violent anti-Semitic behavior, discrediting of the Black Lives Matter movement, casting doubt on free and fair elections, and inciting a mob to take over the Michigan statehouse. One would expect that all this would-be sufficient cause to break the ties with the President. It didn’t. Why? How could this be?

2020 saw a rise in in the Jewish community’s support for Trump. More than 30% of the Jewish community (according to AP) voted for Trump. Many in this large segment of the American Jewish Community, mostly the Ultra Orthodox and Chasidic Communities believed all of the lies.

Then there was the January sixth insurrection. It was the coming out party for the racist, white supremacists, and truly Anti-Semitic fringe, who stormed the capital in the name of Trump at his personal invitation.

Then to make matters worse, he was acquitted by his faithful base of senators who were so afraid of the fringe base that they chose party politics over justice and honor

Let me be clear. The Jewish Trump supporters are not the only ones responsible for our four-year national nightmare. There is plenty of blame to go around and it will be written about and studied by historians and political scientists for years to come.

However.

I honestly don’t understand the undying allegiance and fascination with Trump. A man who literally fiddled (played golf) while the country burned. He lied about the pandemic, he lied about the election, and his open support of white supremacist groups has fueled the fires of anti-Semitism. Just between 2016 and 2018 there was a 60% rise in anti-semitic incidence according to the Anti-Defamation League, going from 942 in 2015 up to 1267 in 2016. Those statistics more than double by 2019 going up to 2107, the highest number since 1979. The direct cause and effect is plain as day.

The Jewish people have been persecuted, killed, expelled from countries all over Europe, for centuries for just being Jewish. I find it inconceivable how any Jewish person could support a man who has complete contempt for the values we hold most dear. The Jewish people are supposed oppose racism, oppression, discrimination, because we as a people understand what that means in the most severe and dire of instances

The hard truth is that Liberal and Conservative Jews must put aside their differences to fight Trumpism. Trump is gone but Trumpism is just getting started. New right-wing media outlets, spewing lies and propaganda, will continue to empower hate groups. Only standing together can overcome this hate.

The aftershocks of the Trump administration and of Trump himself will be felt for years, possibly decades to come. We need to be better. We must hold the moral high ground, because when we don’t, the anti-Semites know just where to find us. It is extremely naïve for us as a community to be assured of our place in America.

My hope for this film will be to document a direct line from Trump’s election in 2016 to a deadly rise in anti-semitic events and behavior as a result of his four years in office. I will do that through interviews with community leaders, scholars, Jewish political associations and legitimate news sources. My intent is to get answers to the questions of: “How did we (the Jewish community) get here” and “How can we fight against anti-Semitism in 2021.” I will also make sure that the countless anti-Semitic events of the past four years are documented for all to see and not swept under the proverbial rug.

It’s imperative that we find some common ground where we as the Jewish community can stand together against racists and fascists of all stripes, because at the end of the day we are all Jews.

Jack Hardy, was the Bard of the Village.

One of the most prolific Folk Musicians of our time.

Jack Hardy was a unique man with a unique voice. While his own music ranged from Celtic folk to roots-inspired Country folk in his later years, the voices that came out of his collective of songwriters and musicians are dynamic, diverse and famously eclectic. Some are names well known to the public and include Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, John Gorka and Christine Lavin. Many others are less well known, but are equally exciting. They all gathered in Jack’s living room to eat pasta and hold their latest creations up to peer scrutiny. In his later years Jack teamed up with long time friend David Massengill and the two became the Folk Brothers, playing and recording until Jack's untimely death in 2011.

Jack knew how to get himself noticed from an early age. In 1969, while a student at the University of Hartford and serving as the editor of its “The News-Liberated Press” , he was arrested and convicted of libel after publishing a lewd cartoon of then-President Nixon.

In the mid-1970s Jack began hosting a Monday night songwriter's circle in his apartment on Houston Street, open to both seasoned veterans as well as beginners. At the same time he began what would become the songwriter's night at the Cornelia Street Cafe. That songwriter's group eventually became the Songwriter's Exchange which released its first album on Stash records in 1980. In 1982 Jack founded, and became the editor of the Fast Folk Musical Magazine.

Jack Hardy was a mover and shaker in his own way. He touched the lives of many talented songwriters with his ear, his voice and his infectious spirit. Never one to shy away from telling the truth or letting people know what he thought, Jack’s songs are a mirror of who he was. His understanding of the human condition and what was important made his music relevant on the most visceral level. He had something to say and he said it.

“Bard of the Village” will explore Jack's world, his influences and legacy in the downtown folk scene. Through interviews with the musicians and songwriters who he called friends, his family and contemporaries, I hope to paint a picture of a man who was less well known than he should have been, and whose voice and heart are still out there performing, writing and sending out the message every night where his influence is still felt. As a testament to Jack, friends and colleagues, will perform their favorite Jack songs in an intimate studio setting.

My ultimate goal for the documentary is to celebrate the man, the world he helped create and shape, and to shine a light on the folk movement that still exists and thrives here in NYC.

This is the story of Sean Casey and the Sean Casey Animal Rescue (SCAR) organization, a Brooklyn, New York-based shelter with an emphasis on caring for even the most unusual of nature's creatures.

Now available on Amazon Prime