Having watched the long goodbye of Alzheimer’s play out twice in my family  I wanted to write  a story that not only reflects the daily struggles of caregivers, but also the heartbreaking choices families face as this illness trudges on and on, taking their loved one down a long, dark path. At its heart, ED and ALFIE is a love story. One that wrestles with the timeless question of, what is love? What does it look like? What does it bring to you, but more importantly, what does love ask of you. 

I was fortunate to bring this story to life with Director Shelly Hong, who has also known the pain of losing a loved one to this illness. It is our hope that the film will lead to discussions about life, love and what it means to care for someone living with Alzheimer’s.

After thirty years writing novels and teaching others to write at Ryerson University in Toronto and Sheridan College in Oakville, books are clearly a big part of my life, but movies have always there too. As a kid, I spent countless Saturday afternoons with my friends at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Toronto watching Beach Blanket romances, Hitchcock thrillers, Vincent Price horrors and anything else that was in the Saturday matinee line up. Whether sighing over Frankie and Annette falling in love, screaming at Hitchcock’s birds or throwing popcorn to get the attention of cute boys in the next aisle, those movies marked the beginning of a lifetime love of movies. At long last, I’m turning that love into something more.

Sarah Polley, Jordan Peele, Jodi Foster, Baz Lurhmann, the list goes on and on. While I have a deep affection for musicals and will happily watch Moulin Rouge and Chicago over and over again, I also go back to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Women Talking and The Peanut Butter Falcon when I need assurance that no matter how big the obstacle in your path, things will turn out okay in the end. In every case, it’s the richness of the stories and the depth of the characters that draw me in and hold me spellbound till the credits roll.

During the pandemic when it seemed that everyone else was discovering their creative well, mine dried up completely. For the first time in my life I had no stories to tell, which shook me to the core. Hoping a different way of telling a tale might turn things around I enrolled in a screenwriting class at NYFA. I was ready for creativity to flow, but I wasn’t ready for the way this new way of thinking and writing took hold. It didn’t take long to realize this is what I want to do when I grow up. I’m a lot older than most first-time filmmakers and I’m well aware that I don’t have years to figure it out. But the stories are flowing, the need to tell them is real and I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life ‘keeping busy.’

The first hurdle was getting over my own fear of being too old to step into filmmaking. Once I crossed that line, the next challenge was deciding to produce Ed and Alfie myself, with absolutely no experience. Fortunately, a seasoned female producer revealed that when she started out, she likened producing to throwing a dinner party. She figured if she could successfully host 25 people for dinner, she could produce a movie. Having planned family reunions, weddings and more Christmases For A Crowd than I like to count, I figured I could do it too. I leapt right in and quickly learned why making a film is nothing like planning a dinner party. It’s so much harder and so much more rewarding. And I want to do it again and again and again.

Realizing my projected budget was too small for what we wanted to accomplish meant scrambling for more money and some sleepless nights. With that problem solved, I was hoping for clear sailing only to have our original lead fall ill two weeks before shooting. That felt like an insurmountable blow until our new Alfie came along and I knew instantly that we were going to be just fine. My biggest challenge turned out to be the very nature of filmmaking. As someone accustomed to working with only an agent and an editor before a book went out into the world, the collaborative nature of film was equal parts excitement and terror. But everything I learned in the creation and production of Ed and Alfie, including how much paperwork is involved, has given me the confidence to take the next step, knowing I still have a lot more to learn.

At the private screenings for cast, crew and our many supporters, it was a joy to hear how deeply the movie had touched people of all ages and backgrounds. “This film is important” and “People need to see this,” were the comments we heard again and again. We couldn’t agree more.

Ed and Alfie is my first step into filmmaking so perhaps it’s my background as a novelist that colours how I think about a film, but I believe that everything should serve the story first, including the vision. This was made clear to me when three directors had read the script and were interested in directing the movie. The first envisioned the story as a kind of thriller where it wasn’t revealed until the end that Ed had Alzheimer’s and the wife was not a murderous monster. A great idea, but he needed a different script to fit that vision, not the one in front of him. The second had a series of beautiful shots in mind but no clear path for the movie as a whole. Then I sat down with Shelly Hong. Not only was her affection for the characters and understanding of the story palpable, her vision for the film was both beautiful and comprehensive. I knew then that Ed and Alfie would be in very good hands. So my take on filmmaking is story first, vision follows. This may shift as I get deeper into it all but for now, that’s my path.

The script for Ed and Alfie won ten festival awards under a different title. Those awards gave me the confidence to attend a few festivals, talk to people and take the next step of turning the script into a film. Putting money into festival submissions can feel a bit like buying lottery tickets – none come with a guarantee. But even without an award, attending festivals both big and small widened my understanding of the industry, offering a chance to meet and talk to other filmmakers who had been where I was or were exactly where I was. The wonderful thing I discovered was the generosity of strangers, the willingness to swap stories or offer advice in a nutshell, over a quick coffee or a longer lunch. For me, those chance encounters and spontaneous discussions were festival gold.

Shelly and I are working together again, this time on an adaptation of one my novels. We’re currently in development on that project, and it will likely take a year or more to get all the pieces in place before we can shoot. Which is why I’m also working on a couple of micro-budget feature scripts that I hope to produce in the meantime. You have to keep dreaming.