From award-winning director Ondi Timoner, – whose directing credits include the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning films DIG! and We Live in Public as well as Mapplethorpe starring Matt Smith – Coming Clean is a feature documentary examining addiction through the eyes of recovering addicts and political leaders, as they come together to bring the profiteers to justice and rebuild in the wake of the deadliest drug epidemic in our history.
Coming Clean will have a timely special national preview screening hosted by the Utah Film Festival on Saturday, October 10th through its Watch at Home program as well as a screening at the Midvale Drive-In. A post-film Q&A with director Ondi Timoner, film participant/subject Congressman Ben McAdams, lead prosecutor Mike Moore and recovering addict Destiny Garcia, will moderated by NPR member station KUER’s RadioWest host Doug Fabrizio.
Rep. McAdams, who represents Salt Lake County, Utah and is facing a competitive election this November, shares his personal story and connection with recovering addict Destiny Garcia – who will also join the conversation. The film also features Mike Moore, lead prosecutor of the high-profile opioid lawsuits and a trial lawyer who took on big tobacco and BP Oil, securing huge settlements.
Long before COVID-19, another pandemic was raging across the American landscape, penetrating all age groups, races and socio-economic classes. The cause: opioids. The culprit: Purdue Pharmaceutical and the company’s deceitful approach to lure in and hook patients. Coming Clean, Ondi Timoner’s new documentary, examines opioid addiction through the eyes of those affected and political leaders, as they come together to bring the profiteers to justice.
Timoner deeply engages us by weaving in personal stories of addicts and their families struggling to overcome this painful addiction, sometimes with success but often with devastating and heart-wrenching consequences. The film presents a clear case against the perpetrators, including how they incentivized physicians to overprescribe opioids. In a hopeful turn, we witness the alliances built between addicts in recovery and policymakers as they work to remove the stigmas surrounding this addiction and impact laws and industries to bring necessary change in communities. A thought-provoking film on the state of our country and the current political landscape.
Within weeks of it’s premiere, Coming Clean won the awards for Best Life & Liberty Film and Special Jury Prize For Editing at the 2020 Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, Alabama and recently screened at the 2020 Bentonville Film Festival in Arkansas where Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis called it “Wonderful and touching…The film I am most excited to share with audiences.“ The film screens at the Woodstock Film Festival; plus was selected to be the Opening Night Film of Mountainfilm, Closing Night of the Bend Film Festival, and is the Centerpiece at Milwaukee Film Festival.
Director Ondi Timoner has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival twice, for DIG! (2004) and We Live in Public (2009). Other award-winning features include: The Nature of the Beast (1994), Join Us (2007), Cool It (2010), Brand: A Second Coming (2015), and Mapplethorpe (2018), a scripted film she wrote and directed, starring Matt Smith. She also created and produced the critically acclaimed 10-hour nonfiction series Jungletown (2017). Timoner is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the DGA, the PGA, the International Documentary Association, and Film Fatales.