Independent Lens
Life After
Life After coalesces the missing voices of the disabled community in the contemporary debate around assisted dying.
Storming
Exploring the depths of love, hopelessness isn’t an option for one family in Storming, who provide 24-hour care for their son nearing 10 years in a coma after a traumatic brain injury.
- Length
- 90 minutes
- Funding Initiative
- Open Call
Producer/Director
Katrina Sorrentino
Katrina (she/her) is a commercial editor making her directorial debut in documentary filmmaking with Storming. She is a Chicken & Egg Fellow and Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow. Experienced in crafting ads and short stories, she aims to tell character-driven stories focusing on nontraditional family units through documentary film.
Producer
Tiffany Fisher-Love
Tiffany (she/her) is a producer who straddles the worlds of fiction and documentary. With a background in digital video work, she focuses her time on generating educational content, seeking to teach through storytelling. Tiffany was a 2021 Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow and a 2022 Sundance Producer Intensive Fellow.
We fund untold stories for public media.
Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.
The Film
After a debate amongst strangers escalates in 2009, twenty-year-old Ryan Diviney is found in a parking lot with a traumatic brain injury leading to a coma.
Storming joins Ryan’s parents nine years after the diagnosis in their home in Ashburn, Virginia. Ryan is still in a coma and their basement now resembles an ICU. His father and full-time care partner, Ken, provides life-sustaining care for him after years of researching and designing an innovative treatment program, while his mother, Sue, works tirelessly to provide income and healthcare coverage for the family. In the hours following their son’s injury, doctors asked an urgent and impossible question: if they wanted to pull the respirator. Almost a decade later, they wonder if they are still doing everything they can for their child. With conflicting emotions about whether Ryan has the ability to return to consciousness, the couple navigates hope and grief, relying on each other to lead the way. Storming examines what it means to love deeply in the face of the unknown.
