BUY TICKETS
St. Petersburg Premiere
Maria Finitzo, USA
Cast: Kasey Buckley, Jack Griffo, Daphne Zuniga
At only 16 years old, Jamie takes an overdose of pills and steps off the end of the dock at his family’s summer home. No explanation can ever justify his terrible choice, an act that forever shatters his family’s history. Those left behind are Jamie's mother Peg (Debra Mooney, Dead Poets Society), his father Robert (Michael Hogan, Battlestar Galactica) and his sister Shelly.
Now, 25 years after Jamie’s death, Shelly (Daphne Zuniga, The Sure Thing) and her 16-year-old son Noah (Jack Griffo, The Thundermans) return to the summer home to help Peg recover from minor heart surgery. Although Peg has come to terms with her grief over her son, the years have not brought closure for her husband or daughter. Both blame themselves for Jamie’s death and have become estranged. Peg hopes Shelly’s visit will finally repair that relationship.
When Shelly arrives at the house, she is flooded with memories. Jamie’s ghost is everywhere: on a swing by the lake, in the corner of an old treehouse they played in as kids, and in the feel of the rocks he once collected. Photographs, home movies, sounds and even touch trigger flashbacks that move the story forward, eventually revealing all that led up to the moment of Jamie’s suicide.
Written and directed by Maria Finitzo, Those Left Behind is a story about loss and a family confronting the hard work of mourning. It is also a story of how a family recovers, and how they find the courage to move forward from that loss and accept that they can never change what has happened.
