Emerging Visions: Introducing "Luckey"

Welcome to another interview in our Emerging Visions series. This time we talk to Luckey director Laura Longsworth.

Hi Laura! So, tell us about your film.

LUCKEY started out as a portrait of an exceedingly quirky artist, but quickly turned into a family drama. Tom Luckey, a sculptor, fell through a window and became fully paralyzed just as he was trying to build the largest, most complicated work of his career. Once he's paralyzed, Tom's wife becomes his caretaker and he enlists his son Spencer, from his first marriage, to help him finish the sculpture. The family relationships are really complicated to begin with. Then they are all tremendously stressed by Tom's accident and the fact that they're essentially forced to rally together under very difficult circumstances that don't seem to have an end in sight. As the sculpture is built, the family fractures.

How do you think your film will stand out at SXSW 2009?

I think every family has its problems and complications. What the Luckeys go through is extreme in a way, but their experience has so many elements that are universal. The characters are also very open and their struggles are raw, so it's a story that hits many people very personally. I'm always fascinated by to which person in the film an audience member relates most closely. Feelings usually run strong and vary greatly. I also think the ending is so unexpected and completely upends any assumptions that because a person is paralyzed he might not be able to exercise control over his life and the lives of others.

What are you most looking forward to about SXSW?

So many things...seeing movies, the premiere party, meeting filmmakers, having my family there. BUT, most definitely I'm looking forward to sharing the film with a new audience. Having one of the main characters, Spencer, there will be a lot of fun and I'm really curious to know what questions the audience will fire at him after the screenings. I'm also really hope people from the arts community and the disability community will attend some screenings. I think people find the film entertaining, but from the beginning I have also wanted it to have meaning for those communities.