Creative Team
AVA'S THOUGHTS
In 2010, I was five and at the Edinburgh Fringe helping my Dad, Bryan, promote his solo drama 'My Name is Bill: An Afternoon with an Alcoholic'. Creativity starts early in the Bounds family! In 2021 in the middle of the pandemic we threw around the idea of making this play into a short film. He wrote an incredible screenplay and because of my success as a young director, he asked if would I direct it. Of course, how could I refuse? It was a great partnership because I think in very visual ways, so I worked with him to add visual ways of telling the story, scouted the locations in Yorkshire, cast the talent from a very large pool, directed the shoot in four days and edited in four months !! Plus I attended local AA meetings to try to understand as much as I could about the mind of an alcoholic and the program of AA.
My hope is that this film touches the hearts and minds of those who suffer with addiction and their families who try to understand them. We've tried to make a film that is both visually different and intellectually interesting. Ultimately it's a true story of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.
BRYAN'S THOUGHTS
'Dying to Meet You' has evolved from my solo drama ‘My Name is Bill: An Afternoon with an Alcoholic’, which had a successful global tour of theatres and treatment centers. I was motivated to write it from my family’s harrowing experience of alcoholism and sustained recovery. The success of the play can be summed up by one audience member who said: "Now I know my husband isn't the only nutter out there."
It’s also a celebration of the unsung hero who has helped millions toward recovery following his own rock-bottom moment depicted in the film. If what happened in this film hadn’t happened – and his tireless work that followed – then about two million people around the world who are alive today probably wouldn’t be. Including members of my family.
When I read ‘Bill’s Story’ three decades ago in Houston, Texas, I had no idea that a man whom I'd never met – just by telling his story – was about to reach out across time and save my life, as he and the other founders of the twelve step movement have done for millions.
Then, in 2009 it occurred to me that Bill’s story is a profoundly moving tale of humility, sacrifice and responsibility. So I’ve written it as a payback to Bill, as a memorial to my brother, and as a message of support to people who may have a loved one who's affected by this illness and want to learn more. The journey has taken me inside Bill’s boyhood home in Vermont, inside the Brooklyn brownstone where he hit bottom (and which I found to be surprisingly homely), and to the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel in Akron. It’s been one of the most humbling journeys of my life.
I'm humbled that the screenplay was declared the winner of the CINEQUEST Screenwriting Competition for 2022 - proof, I believe, that Bill's story is powerful, universal and timely.
Bryan Bounds