Produced byAcademy Award® Winner Ira Wohl
and Katie Cadigan
Katie Cadigan
Producer
Los Angeles, California
Katie Cadigan, John's sister, is an independent documentary filmmaker and the owner of the imageReal Pictures production company, which she established in 1997. She has produced and directed documentaries for PSB, HBO, and cable networks such as AMC, A&E, and the History Channel, winning many awards for outstanding documentary and other honors.
Katie spent several years teaching film and video production courses for graduate and undergraduate students in the Communication Department at Stanford, where she received her master's degree in documentary film.
Most recently, Katie produced and directed a documentary entitled When Medicine Got It Wrong, about how parents refused blame for causing schizophrenia and launched a grassroots movement to overturn psychiatric understanding of the disease. The film will be shown on PBS in May of 2010.
Given her background and her personal connection with John, Katie was the ideal producer for People Say I'm Crazy, and John credits her knowledge and creative collaboration as a key factor in the film's success.
For my family and me, entering the world of severe mental illness was like falling through Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole.
We were dealing in a world we didn't understand and where many things made no sense—the difficulty of finding humane and appropriate treatment, all the cultural nonsense about schizophrenia.
I hated all the horrible stereotypes. My brother, the teddy bear, is not the "psycho" or violent monster people imagine when they hear the word "schizophrenia."
People Say I'm Crazy became the creative home for my grief, frustration and fury around dealing with John's illness and the difficulties we faced as a family.
The more we filmed, the more passionate I became about letting the world know that good treatment exists, that recovery is possible, and that people with my brother's illness can build rich and satisfying lives.
When my brother asked me to help him make a film, I agreed, but we made one simple rule: do no harm. John's recovery and stability held top priority at all times, even if it meant missing fantastic filmic moments.
You'll see for yourself how John's symptoms—including paranoia—came into play, when you see the film! Naturally, John's camera only filmed what he saw first-hand.
A whole other film could be made about the things he didn't see—the behind-the-scenes machinations of our family as we struggled to understand John's illness and learn ways to support him. People Say I'm Crazy doesn't show the Cadigans as we cried among ourselves, as we fought for decent care, or the many mistakes we made along the way.
What the film does show is the end result of all that thrashing --- a family who ultimately decided to stand by John and help him fulfill his dream of being an artist.
- Katie Cadigan
