Let Me Have My Son

Director's Statement

Let Me Have My Son is based on my personal experience coming to grips with my firstborn son’s struggles with mental illness. My son has suffered. His family has suffered. Yet all our troubles and heartache shall be redeemed. Of that I am sure. Let Me Have My Son is not a documentary, nor an effort to promote the latest scientific breakthrough or miracle cure for the scourge of mental illness. Nor is it our intention with the film to stir up controversy for the sake of controversy, or advocate for sweeping changes in the mental healthcare system - even where change in the system might be indicated. More than anything else, Let Me Have My Son is intended as a heartfelt expression of the longing we all have as human beings to make sense of our greatest pain and suffering. I can speak from personal experience that medicine alone cannot solve the problem of mental illness. Indeed, if we are looking for doors of healing and understanding to open in this life only, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment beyond words. According to WHO (World Health Organization), mental disorders affect one of four people worldwide. And let’s be real… This is an issue probably close to you as well, at least to some degree. Maybe it’s not in your immediate family… Perhaps it’s your cousin… an aunt or uncle far away… the neighbor’s son across the street. The question becomes what do we do when faced with a situation as intractable as mental illness? Our approach in Let Me Have My Son is to venture down a spiritual path, bringing hope and empathy to the hurting. Messenger Films is a 501c3 corporation. It is our goal to communicate in the universal language of cinema, addressing the deep needs of the soul through films of beauty, stories of hope. MOVIE LOGLINE: An ailing father, informed that his son has recovered from schizophrenia, travels to the state mental hospital to take him home, only to discover he’s nowhere to be found.