Help us make The Past is Patient Film

***Update: We are at 3k on our fiscal sponsorship website! If you are looking for a tax deductible option, head Here . It is a bit more labor intensive, so just fair warning!

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Introduction: Hi, My name is Mele Black and I am a writer, producer and actor in the short film The Past is Patient. I am working really hard to get this film made. And I am asking for your help.

Background: In 2009, I lost a friend to suicide. I experienced complex grief but I didn’t know how to name it, let alone process it. More than a decade later, I started to see a pattern: the way we grieve is shaped by what we inherit. Generational trauma doesn’t just live in the big, visible moments, it’s in how we cope. How we hide. How we keep moving even when something inside us has stopped.

This isn’t my first attempt to tell this story.

Last year, I tried to make a version of this film on my own. I poured in everything I had (including my life savings). But I didn’t have the right collaborators, or the freedom to tell the story the way it needed to be told. The result lacked clarity, heart, and alignment. So I made the hardest (and most honest) choice: I walked away.

And then I started over.

Inspired by the story, Filmmaker David Dodson didn't want to see my efforts go to waste. He believed in the message, but more importantly, he believed in me. He made an offer that I never expected: "I would like to help you make this film". And here we are.

As our director, editor (and co-writer) David helped me have a second chance at telling a story that lived inside of me for years.

Logline: Years after the death of his sister, a man is pulled into a quiet reckoning with her memory; confronting the guilt he’s carried and the healing he never believed he deserved.

The Story: When Rick stumbles across an old Zippo lighter, he accidentally sparks more than just flame: he awakens the memory of Jo, his sister, and the grief he’s never faced.

What follows is a quiet confrontation between past and present. As Jo reappears, more memory than ghost, she draws Rick into the emotional wreckage they both tried to escape. Between her presence and their mother’s continued decline inside their old trailer home, Rick is forced to reckon with the generational damage that shaped them: addiction, abandonment and the weight of unprocessed grief.

Told through non-linear, emotionally layered flashbacks, The Past Is Patient explores how trauma mutates over time and how healing doesn’t always arrive as redemption, but as release. The Past Is Patient asks a simple but devastating question: What do we do with the pain we inherit?

That’s what The Past Is Patient is about. Not answers, but presence. Not dramatic resolutions, but the quiet recognition that healing begins with staying long enough to acknowledge that the pain exists. It's a place to start.

What Now? Now, we're planning a focused five-day shoot in Santa Clarita, with a cast of six working under a SAG UPA agreement. We’ll be shooting on 35mm film, with gear generously sponsored by Panavision. We know it's ambitious. But stories like this deserve to be told with care and craft.

You can learn more about who is bringing this film to life and what it is about, HERE

We know this story can’t fix what’s broken. Nothing is resolved in a single conversation or a fifteen-minute film. But what we can do is hold space. With care. With intention.

Thank you. From the bottom of our hearts-

Mele Black and The Past is Patient Team

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Where your money goes: Every dollar helps us reach our 70 k goal and bring this story to life. Here's where your contribution makes an impact:

Production Costs 35%

35mm Film Stock & Processing- We are shooting on 35mm film! An exciting Development and lost art!

Camera & Equipment Rentals – With support from Panavision, your donations help us unlock professional-grade gear

Location Fees, Permits, Set Dressing – We have two locations: A Desert/Trailer and a very Large meadow

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Cast & Crew Support-30%

Paying Our Team– We have a talented Pre-production and Principal Photography crew

Safety, Meals, and Transportation-We are shooting in Santa Clarita and Rosamund California.​

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Post-Production-20%

Editing, Sound Design, and Color Grading, ensuring the final film is as sharp and haunting as the story demands

Original Score

Impact & Outreach-15%

Partnership Building – Connecting with suicide prevention, mental health, and addiction orgs

Festival Submissions & Screenings – Getting this film in front of the right audiences at prestigious festivals and community screenings.

Access & Inclusion – Creating space for community conversations