*If You Could Say It In Words*, a film
written and directed by Louisville native Nicholas Gray, will have its world
premiere on October 8 at 9:00 p.m. on the opening night of the Derby City
Film Festival at the Louisville Memorial Auditorium, on 970 South Fourth
Street in Louisville, KY 40203.
*If You Could Say It In Words *is a nuanced, unflinching look at a romance
in which a painter with undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome challenges a young
woman's conventional ideas and his own understanding of love.
Nelson (Alvin Keith) has Asperger's syndrome, a condition that impairs
social function. Undiagnosed, poor, African-American, and a painter, he is
pushed to society's fringes. He meets Sadie (Marin Ireland), a young woman
with broken dreams who now treads water at a job that's not her career, has
a roommate who's not her friend, and sleeps with her married boss, Mark
(Gerry Lehane). A one-night stand grows into an unlikely romance wherein two
people lost in different ways begin to find themselves through each other.
But the conventional expectations imposed by others -- and by Sadie -- put
their relationship in jeopardy.
Alex Plank, founder of autism advocacy website WrongPlanet.net, says "Alvin
[Keith]'s performance as Nelson is quite possibly the most authentic
portrayal of an autistic person that I've ever seen in the movies…It's
refreshing to finally see a film that explores an autistic individual who
isn't two dimensional."
*If You Could Say It In Words* is the first feature film produced by A Chip
& A Chair Films LLC, whose mission is to support the uncompromising vision
of film and theater artists. The company raised money for *If You Could Say
It In Words *through an innovatively democratic funding structure -- selling
shares in the film to individual investors at $225 apiece. They raised
enough money initially to shoot only less than half of the film; so they
shot a selection of scenes, edited, and then used the material to promote
the film to investors, eventually garnering enough shareholders to complete
the shooting and post-production of the film over the course of several
years.
Writer/director Nicholas Gray was born in Louisville, Kentucky and grew up
all across the state (Lexington, Lebanon, Campbellsville, and Louisville).
He graduated from Ballard High School and first studied acting with Walden
Theater Conservatory. Virtually Nicholas' entire family is in or from the
state, with ties going back to the time before Kentucky formally joined the
U.S. Nicholas currently plans to return to Louisville this winter as
director and co-producer on a series of awareness videos for the Autism
Self-Advocacy Network. As part of the series, he will be profiling the
teacher whose remarkable relationship with his autistic children first
inspired Nicholas to write a script with an autistic lead role.
The film features Broadway and regional theater veteran Alvin Keith (Arena
Stage, NJ Rep, Virginia Rep) and Obie-award winner Marin Ireland, who also
has major roles in upcoming films *The Understudy, Brief Interviews with
Hideous Men*.
