THE VOICE

Recovery City Looks at Addiction Through the Eyes of Those Who’ve Lived It

When documentarian Lisa Olivieri began her second film, Recovery City, in 2019, she knew two things: she wanted to tell a story about the growing opioid crisis, and she wanted that story to be told from a woman’s perspective. 

“It started with Christine,” she says, referring to the film's central subject, a mother fighting to regain custody of her young children while working to achieve and hold onto her sobriety. “The story of her recovery journey and her fight for her kids was very compelling. But there was a lot of her story—court hearings, counseling sessions—that I couldn’t film. So, I started looking for other stories to flesh out the project.” 

Recovery City is one of five documentary films that will be screened Saturday, March 28, at the 19^th Annual Vinfen Film Festival. Taking place at GBH Studios, the festival uses the power of film to raise awareness, foster important dialogue, and fight against the discrimination and stigma faced by people with mental health conditions and disabilities—all of which Recovery City does, telling the story of four women at different stages of their recovery journeys. 

Set in Worcester, the film follows Christine as she grapples with a traumatic past and battles stigma from the very systems that are designed to help her; Bridget, who achieved sobriety while in prison, and uses the hard-fought lessons she’s learned to help other women as a peer supporter; and recovery coaches Janis and Rebecca, who work on the frontlines of the opioid crisis, navigating the city’s toughest streets as they offer support and try to save lives. We recently spoke to Olivieri about the project. 

Q: The women profiled in your film tell amazing stories of survival and perseverance. What did you take away from spending time getting to know them and seeing inside their lives? 

A: An appreciation for the remarkable strength they’ve all found within themselves. Being able to keep themselves moving forward in recovery while simultaneously rebuilding their lives takes unbelievable dedication and toughness, and they’ve all faced such distinct and unique challenges. 

While I was filming Bridget, for example, she was incarcerated. She got paroled, but chose to stay in prison, because she knew she still needed to work on herself and her sobriety. How many of us would choose to stay in jail if we had the chance to get out? That’s a level of self-awareness I find hard to fathom. And then, when she did get out, she went to work helping others pursue recovery—and she’s doing it on the same streets and neighborhoods where she was homeless. That could be so triggering, but her commitment to helping others is staggering. 

Rebecca got addicted to painkillers after an accident, and she went to detox, by her count, 150 times before she got clean in 2014. That’s just unbelievable... an absolute refusal to give up.  

Q: What did you find the most eye-opening when filming… the thing you didn’t fully understand going in? 

A: Probably the way Christine was treated by a system that is ostensibly set up to help her and her children. Her children were kept by DCF for such a long time while she was doing everything they asked her to do to get them back, and I eventually asked her lawyer why. The lawyer told me, "They don’t like her. They don’t like her tattoos, her piercings, her dreadlocks, the way she talks… they just don’t like her." And that was enough to keep her kids apart from her for years? 

I was aware of stigma, but maybe not the depths of how much women in recovery are subjected to. It’s easy to push women around who are on the lower socioeconomic scale, and there’s so much unequal treatment people with addiction issues are subjected to. When Christine first had her children taken from her, she asked her social worker about getting into detox immediately, and was essentially told, "No, you need to get a job first and start making money." If she had cancer, and needed chemo, would she have been told to put that on the backburner? Addiction is a disease, but it’s not treated like other diseases. 

Q: You’ve had the opportunity to screen Recovery City across the country—often accompanied by the women profiled in the film. What has that process been like? 

A: Incredibly positive experience for all of us. The post-film Q&As have been amazing. We often have audience members who are sick and suffering through addiction… just beginning their own recovery journeys. And when they see these four women who are success stories, who have advice to give and are happy to help, it’s incredibly empowering and encouraging. I can only talk about recovery—these women are living it every day of their lives. 

Q: What do you most hope that audiences who watch the film take away from the experience? 

A: I would say greater empathy and less bias toward people with substance use issues. It’s a well-known cliché, but absolutely true: the person with an addiction can be anybody—your family, your friend, your neighbor. Compassion costs nothing. If you’re not willing to help a person in recovery, at least don’t go out of your way to hurt them. People with this disease feel badly enough about themselves—none of them chose this path for themselves. I just hope that these stories humanize and put a face and a name to the substance use crisis. 

Join us March 28 for The Vinfen Film Festival! To purchase tickets for Recovery City, or to see the complete festival program, visit www.vinfen.org/film-festival.