Independent Lens
The Providers
In rural America, doctors are flowing out and opioids are flowing in--meet three committed healthcare providers stemming that tide.
Untitled Camp Widow Documentary
At Camp Widow, every attendee, volunteer, speaker, and staff member has lost their partner; together they find camaraderie and unexpected joy.
- Funding Initiative
- Short-Form Series and Special Projects
Co-Director
Laura Green
Laura Green is a documentary director and editor based in San Francisco. She has directed, produced and edited five short documentaries, which played at numerous festivals, including Palm Springs Shortfest, Aspen Shortsfest, Sarasota Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, and Outfest. She edited True Son (2014), a feature length documentary,… Show more
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- The Providers
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The Film
When Michele Neff Hernandez was 35 years old, her husband Phillip went out for an evening bike ride and never came home. He was hit by a car and died an hour later. Along with the challenges of caring for a blended family of six children, Michele struggled to find people who felt like her. Born out of this need to connect with other people who understood the life-altering experience of widowhood, she launched Camp Widow, a community where every attendee, volunteer, speaker, and staff member has lost their partner. From across the U.S. and around the world, adults of all ages and backgrounds gather in various locations – San Diego, California; Toronto, Canada; Tampa, Florida – to share their experiences of partner loss while insulated from the concerns, demands, and judgments of daily life. Weary of platitudes about grief, campers share their experiences coping with the sometimes devastating financial impact of widowhood; they commiserate over the unsolicited and at times invasive sympathy of strangers; and they offer pointers about how to talk to well-meaning friends who think they should be “moving on.”
