Judith Ivey<\/a> \u2014 known for among other things \u201cDesigning Women,\u201d \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Advocate,” \u201cSteel Magnolias\u201d and Oscar-nominated \u201cWomen Talking\u201d \u2014 that will make it easier for the production company, which last year had a feature film in the Sundance Film Festival,\u00a0to secure the remaining financing through industry investors.<\/p>\nHe says this is why he moved to New York and then Los Angeles \u2014 not to get away from Jacksonville, but to connect with the people who could help him return to Jacksonville to make films, starting with \u201cBaby Tooth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caregiving and ‘Lawrence Welk’<\/h2>\n
His grandmother was 95 when she fell and broke both her legs. She wasn\u2019t able to walk again. For the last six months of her life, she lived in a medical bed in the middle of his mother\u2019s living room. His mom and sister took turns as caregivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was visiting them, I would see the sacrifices that they were making, the things that they were putting aside in order to provide for my grandmother,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Every day they would turn on \u201cThe Lawrence Welk Show.\u201d And this show that his grandmother watched growing up would unlock something in her. As she was dying, it brought her to life. She would wave her hands, as if conducting the orchestra.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could just sort of see through her eyes that she was escaping through this sort of colorful, nostalgic, shimmery glamor that was on the TV,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After she took her last breath, he thought all of this should be a movie. A serious movie about topics like death and dying and caregiving. But also a movie about escapism and acceptance.<\/p>\n
The title of the film comes from something he and the main character still have. A baby tooth that never came out. He wanted to get it taken out, wanted to get rid of this remnant of a tumultuous childhood. But when he couldn\u2019t, he eventually accepted it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it’s kind of goofy and poetic, the whole baby tooth story,\u201d he said. \u201cBut for me, it truly is this symbolism of how trauma, once worked through, you can move with it in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown says his mother, Jan, was a die-hard Floridian, but when her mother died, she needed to start over. So she moved to Maine. And his sister, Elizabeth, ended up there, too, pursuing something partly inspired by their grandmother\u2019s final six months. After at one point catching a dangerous drug interaction that doctors and the pharmacy missed, Elizabeth went to pharmacy school. She\u2019s now a Doctor of Pharmacy.<\/p>\n
Drew Brown recently went to Maine to film a short documentary of his mother and sister talking about their experiences and caregiving. It will be shown Thursday night at WJCT. Tissues will be needed. It is sad and poignant but \u2014 as he also imagines \u201cBaby Tooth\u201d \u2014 has its moments of inspiration and laughter.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one when his sister, talking about women often being the caregivers, says: \u201cJust because we\u2019re good at it doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re the only ones that can or should be doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, speaking not to the camera but the brother behind it, she quips: \u201cWhen Momma gets old, I\u2019m just going to ship her off to you, and she\u2019ll be your problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
You hear all of them laugh, then see Drew reach out his hand and say, \u201cLet\u2019s shake on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, his sister says: \u201cThere needs to be a societal shift in the way people approach end-of-life care. It’s so immensely important that we fund projects like this, because that’s how we are able to alter and improve people’s perspectives, especially on difficult topics like caregiving and death.\u201d<\/p>\n
mwoods@jacksonville.com<\/em><\/p>\n(904) 359-4212<\/em><\/p>\nThis article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Filmmaker plans to make debut feature film in Jacksonville<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a filmmaker, it\u2019s a daunting task to take an idea and get it onto a screen. That\u2019s true for a short film. But to make a full-length, independent feature film \u2014 to get it written, produced, shot and actually shown to audiences \u2014 is an even more daunting (and more expensive) task. \u201cIt\u2019s nearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2138686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[407820,407821,317123,373964,22373,378147,33801,407823,407822,360163,308390],"class_list":["post-2138685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-art-institute-of-jacksonville","tag-baby-tooth","tag-feature-film","tag-filmmaker","tag-florida","tag-independent-feature-film","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-film-festival","tag-lewis-brown","tag-northeast-florida","tag-production-company"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/His-dream-isnt-just-to-make-a-feature-film-Its.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2138685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2138685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2138685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2138687,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2138685\/revisions\/2138687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2138686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2138685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2138685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2138685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}