Sunny Intervals and Showers
Living with Bipolar Disorder
A film by Jonathan Goodman Levitt
Dr. Allan Levi is suspended from work and in trouble at home due to his episodes of manic depressive illness (Bipolar Disorder). Filmed in the year after Allan's diagnosis, Sunny Intervals is an intimate and ironic portrait of a marriage and a family in crisis.
Endearing yet self-obsessed, Allan leaves a career as a medical researcher and university professor to start a business selling model airplanes .His wife, Jackie, a doctor, struggles to come to terms with the unexpected role of being a "caregiver" for a mentally ill husband. But is Allan's increasingly frenetic lifestyle evidence of illness, eccentricity or simply hard work?
An observational documentary, the film depicts one man's -- and one family's -- life with warmth, humor, and poignancy. Rather than being told what to think, viewers are given the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about the nature of truth, reality, and madness. We experience the often dramatic reality of living with manic depression -- and also the surprising consequences of simply being labeled mentally ill.
60 min. Video or DVD. Sale $350. Video rental $85.
"Levitt's superb documentary touches the core of the all-consuming psychic beast that is bipolar disorder. It reveals how understanding and familial support after the disease may not prevent the "sufferer's" own continued struggle, regardless of medication and treatment." Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo, President, American Psychological Association and Professor, Stanford University
"Sunny Intervals and Showers is a profound contribution...that manages to portray all the mess and backchat of family life better than any film I can remember. I cannot imagine a richer resource -- other than, God forbid, living the situation oneself." Prof. Michael Rabiger, Columbia College
Western Psychological Association 2007
International Society for Affective Disorders (ISAD) Conference, Lisbon, 2006
Chicago International Documentary Festival, 2005
One World Human Rights Film Festival, Prague, Berlin and Bratislava, 2005 Independent Feature Project, N.Y., 2005
