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ABOUT
THE FILM
After a decision leads to his brother’s overdose, Joshua grapples with years of guilt and confusion. Determined to understand the pain that has engulfed his family, he sets out to uncover the true meaning of grief. What follows is a decade interviewing grief and trauma experts, seeking healing for himself and others.
The Gift of Grief explores what it means to grieve, how families cope, and the unexpected gift that can emerge from life’s most painful moments.It underscores the vital need to understand and embrace grief in modern society, offering a pathway to healing and resilience. We hope this film touches your heart, evokes healing and understanding and ultimately creates more love in the world.
Cinema can be a powerful force for change. Our aim is, beyond mere education, to truly move hearts and minds and inspire audiences to feel safer to feel their grief so they can free themselves from past hurt & pain so they can love again fully. The film is our modest contribution towards our dream to create a more grief informed world where we realized almost all of our problems in our current society are due to unaddressed past grief.
SYNOPSIS
Our natural response to loss is heartbreak and we express this through grief. Although we all enter this world grieving, our schools, work environments, communities, and families rarely teach us how to process our losses. We learn that mourning is wrong—which leads us to numb, avoid, and suppress our heartbreak.
One in five Americans is diagnosed with mental illness in any given year [1]. Suicide is the second most common cause of death in the US for youth aged 15-24 [2], and kills over 800,000 people a year globally [3] and 48,300 in the USA [4]. Drug overdose kills 81,000 in the USA annually [5]. The autoimmune epidemic affects 24 million people in the USA [6]. What is happening in our world?
Could this surge in mental health issues, suicide, and addiction be rooted in unprocessed grief? Are our addictions an attempt to suppress our sadness? Or is it possible that we mistake sorrow for depression?
VISION
My intention behind producing this film is to inspire an active movement toward a grief and trauma-informed society.
A society where:
We recognize the prevalence of grief among all of us
We learn to notice and feel the grief as a gift in ourselves
We acknowledge that whenever we have an emotional reaction, an old wound is being triggered
We understand the imprint of unprocessed grief or trauma on our behaviors and its impact on our relationships
We recognize and witness the pain, grief, or sadness in others versus trying to fix or take away their pain
We learn to observe and allow our own sadness and sorrow without having to fix or take it away
We support connection and compassion as the foundations of safety
TEAM
Film by
Joshua Wenner
PRODUCED BY
RARE MEDIa
PRODUCER
akira chan
PRODUCER
christopher hillman
EDITOR
tony wise
Characters
A 34 year old veteran, coach & entrepreneur who loses his little brother Jeffrey to a heroin overdose. Joshua goes on a journey of interviewing experts on grief & trauma & applying to go from being emotionally shut down & rigid to being able to feel his grief & come back to life again. He then turns his pain into purpose by helping men, veterans & first responders to heal their grief & trauma.
JOSHUA WENNER
A 79 yr old veteran, husband & father who enjoys fly fishing, hunting & camping. Jim lost both of his parents at a young age & the way he dealt with it is by just moving on & focusing on the future to deal with his pain. Through the process of losing his son Jeffrey, he learns to be patient with his wife’s grieving which is different than his, runs the Burning Man camp as a way to celebrate Jeffrey & uses the information from Sunny the psychic to communicate with his son to help move through his grief which brings him peace.
Jim WENNER
A 75 year old mother, wife & legal secretary who enjoys walking & spending time camping & in the outdoors. Robynne lost her son Jeffrey & her process of honoring her grieving process by leaving his room unchanged for 12 years. She also finds the information from Sunny the psychic helpful for her healing process to communicate with her son & she eventually reaches a point where she is ready to let go of his room through her healing.
ROBYNNE WENNER
Joshua’s cats 1 year old Shakti & Shiva are brother & sister. They enjoy eating treats, going with Joshua to his retreats, car rides & long naps. During this film Joshua has an experience with Shiva that helps him get a 2nd chance at dealing grief & loss with the new tools he has learned.
Shakti & Shiva Wenner
INTERVIEW GUESTS
David Kessler - Grief & Loss Author & Authority
David Kessler is one of the world’s foremost experts on grief and loss. His experience with thousands of people on the edge of life and death has taught him the secrets to living a happy and fulfilled life, even afterlife’s tragedies. He is the author of six books, including the new bestselling book, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. He coauthored two books with Elisabeth Kubler Ross, including On Grief and Grieving updated her 5 stages for grief. His first book, The Needs of The Dying received praise from Saint (Mother) Teresa.
Dr. Gabor Maté - Specialist in Addiction & Childhood Development Trauma
Dr. Maté, renowned addiction expert, calls for a compassionate approach toward addiction, whether in ourselves or in others. Dr. Maté believes that the source of addictions is not to be found in genes but in the early childhood environment. In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts, one of his best-selling books, draws on cutting-edge science and real-life stories to show that all addictions originate in trauma and emotional loss.
Dr. Donna Schurmann - Previous Director of The Dougy Center
Dr. Schuurman is an internationally recognized authority on grief and bereaved children, teens, and families, and the author of Never the Same: Coming to Terms with the Death of a Parent (St. Martin’s Press, 2003), among other publications. Dr. Schuurman has written extensively on topics related to children who are grieving. Her articles and other contributions have been published in scholarly journals and textbooks, and she has been interviewed as an expert on the subject by Redbook, The New York Times, SmartMoney, USA Today, and many other consumer publications. She has worked directly with families and communities impacted by large-scale tragedies and natural disasters including the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), Japan’s Great Hanshin Earthquake (1995), the 9/11 Attacks, Tohoku Earthquake (2011), and the Sandy Hook school shootings (2012).
Dr. Ken Druck, Ph.D - Grief and Loss Authority
Ken Druck, Ph.D. is a leading mental health expert focused on the areas of civility, relationships, and aging. He writes regularly for the national press and is the author of several books including, Raising an Aging Parent, Courageous Aging, and The Real Rules of Life.
Dr. Druck's pioneering work over the past 40 years, has included Executive Coaching/Consulting, Visionary Leadership, The Psychology of Men, Parent Effectiveness, Healing After Loss, Resilience and, most recently, Courageous Aging.
Kathy Eldon - Authority on Grief & Founder Creative Visions
Kathy has worked as a teacher, journalist, author and film and television producer in England, Africa and the United States. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Kathy graduated from Wellesley College, married an Englishman, moved to London, and ten years later, flew to Nairobi, Kenya with her husband and two children, where Kathy worked as an author and journalist in the vibrant new nation. Following the death of her artist and photojournalist son Dan – killed at the age of 22 in 1993, while on assignment for Reuters in Somalia, Kathy moved West Hollywood, where she launched Creative Visions, a non-profit organization to support creative activists like Dan who use arts and media to ignite positive change. Launched in her bedroom, the organization is now based in the Dan Eldon Center for Creative Activism in Malibu and has incubated more than 400 projects and productions and impacted more than 100 million people. Creative Visions has been recognized as a United Nations Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).
Dr. David Berceli - Trauma Authority & Founder TRE
David Berceli, Ph.D. is an international expert in the areas of trauma intervention and conflict resolution. He is the creator of Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE). This revolutionary technique is designed to help release the deep tension created in the body during a traumatic experience or through chronic stress. He is also the energetic and creative founder and CEO of Trauma Recovery Services.
Dave has spent two decades living and working in nine countries providing trauma relief workshops and designing recovery programs for international organizations around the world. He has lived and worked extensively in Israel/Palestine, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Yemen, Egypt, and Lebanon. He is fluent in English and Arabic.
Sunny Dawn Johnston - Psychic Medium, Author
Sunny Dawn Johnston is an acclaimed psychic medium, changemaker, transformational thought leader, and spiritual biz mentor. She is a weekly columnist for Woman’s World magazine and the author of twenty-four books, including her flagship bestsellers, Invoking the Archangels and The Love Never Ends, which have become the cornerstones for many of her keynote topics such as intuition, mediumship, and the angelic realm.
Paul Denniston - Founder of Grief Yoga
Paul Denniston is the founder of Grief Yoga®, which uses yoga, movement, breath, and sound to release pain and suffering and connect to love.
Paul is certified in Hatha Yoga, Vinyasa Flow, Kundalini Yoga, Laughter Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Let Your Yoga Dance. He also has taught movement at the Stella Adler Academy in Hollywood. Paul volunteered for years at one of the largest Los Angeles hospices, where he offered Heart Touch massage to the dying. He teaches Grief Yoga to bereavement groups; cancer support centers; groups whose loved ones died by suicide; Alzheimer’s groups; healing after a breakup, divorce, or betrayal; and addiction groups.
Paul has trained thousands of therapists, counselors, and health care professionals in the United States, England, Ireland, Germany, and Australia.
Brennan Wood
Brennan Wood has been the Executive Director of Dougy Center since 2015. Since 2004, Brennan has served in multiple roles at the organization. Brennan's background and expertise is grounded in fundraising, strategic planning, organizational development, and capacity building.
Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross - On Death & Dying
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, and author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying, where she first discussed her theory of the five stages of grief, also known as the "Kübler-Ross model".
Dianne Gray - CEO of hospice & healthcare communication
Dianne Gray is an author/advocate/force of nature as a grief and end of life care expert a degree that focused on sports management/sports medicine (neurology and psychology fascination) in college and the school of life, afterward. She’s global keynote speaker, author of hundreds of articles/textbook chapters, TV/radio host & guest and President of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation (www.ekrfoundation.org). She's also been the single parent/caregiver for child diagnosed at age 5 with a neurodegenerative disorder and parent of a healthy young daughter. Since then, her son died and she has dedicated her life to improving care for all adults and children facing serious illness. You can also find her work at: www.hhccommunications.com. Currently, Dianne writes and build partnerships in film, music, television, with healthcare organizations or often, sitting bedside with the seriously ill (which she loves). Most currently Dianne works with Olivia Newton-John, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Amy Sky as a writer/partnership "builder for good" for the LIV ON project.
Michelle & Ellen Shane - Emily Shane Foundation
In 2011, Ellen and Michel Shane founded the 501(c)3 nonprofit, The Emily Shane Foundation, driven by the tragic loss of their youngest child Emily in 2010. Committed to transforming the lives of underserved middle schoolers, they honor Emily's memory through academic aid and kindness initiatives.
Sue Wong - Celebrity Fashion Designer
Sue Wong is a Chinese-born American fashion designer best known for her dress designs with a contemporary twist based on old Hollywood glamor style. Her collections, available in some 27 countries, have been noted for her interpretations of the traditions of couture dressmaking of romantic eras such as Weimar Berlin, 1930s Shanghai, pre-code Hollywood, and Manhattan’s gilded Jazz Age. She owns Sue Wong Universe, based in Los Angeles, California.
Collier Landry - Murder In Mansfield
Collier Landry's strong and passionate message of human resilience, hope, and personal triumph over adversity has inspired audiences across the globe. As the creator and subject of Investigation Discovery's A Murder in Mansfield, the documentary from two-time Oscar-winning director, Barbara Kopple.
DiDi Benami - American Idol
Vered "Didi" Benami is an American singer-songwriter and television host. After placing tenth on the ninth season of American Idol, she released her debut single, "Gasoline", in 2012 and the album Reverie in 2014. In 2023, she began co-hosting the AXS series Banded.
Carlena Britch - So You Think You Can Dance
A choreographer, movement artist & director based in Los Angeles.
My artistic journey started with dance, where the gift of movement allowed me to express all of the intensity my body carried from a chaotic upbringing.
As a professional, I had the honor of dancing for artists like Prince, Usher, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Gwen Stefani, Alicia Keys, & many more.
My desire for expression evolved, & it was time for the next chapter. I began training as an actress in Meisner Technique, Lucid Body Work & RASA Aesthetics, as well as comedy improv at the Groundlings, Second City & UCB. My acting journey graciously landed me in shows like Another Life, The Twilight Zone, Charmed, The X-Files, & iZombie, to name a few, as well as films like Babylon & The Prom.
Today, I’ve fused my worlds as both an actress & professional dancer, working as a choreographer & movement director with musicians & bands, as well as music videos, commercials, films, & television. I’ve had the pleasure of working with artists like Poppy & DeathbyRomy, bands like Scarlet Opera, as well as brands like Pepsi, Wendy’s, & Nutrilite.
I pride myself in having a unique approach with this work, bending & re-shaping the definitions of what it means to be a performer. You will learn how to be a character in your own story, where the beauty of expression & movement are married in a unique, effortless unison.
Breanna Wood - Executive Director Dougy Center
Brennan rejoined Team Dougy as the Receptionist and Program Assistant in 2004. After moving through many different roles, she became the Executive Director in October of 2015.
Brennan is a member of the Board of Directors of National Alliance for Grieving Children, on the National Advisory Council for the COVID Collaborative, and a member of the Advisory Council for Hidden Pain. She previously served on the Board of Directors of Willamette Valley Development Officers (WVDO). She was a WVDO Star Bright Award finalist, a United Way Speaker of the Year, the 2020 Portland Monthly Light-a-Fire Awards Extraordinary Executive Director, and a 2022 Portland Business Journal Woman of Influence.
