Screen this film "Finding Snow White -- because healing is possible" in your community! Contact the Producer Fiona McDougall: fiona @ owcom.com
An incredible contribution to the field of mental health. A powerful message around resilience, the human spirit, and the ways in which we can train ourselves to live life in the face of adversity. Beautiful and poignant. ------- Sapna Gandhi, CMO of We Make Movies
Finding Snow White suggests that from tragedy may come renewal. The film focuses upon the ideas and theories of a mother, turned psychotherapist, of a murdered son. She extols freedom from family expectations and emergence from an emotional cocoon. The film invites discussion and critical review. ------- Leland van den Daele, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology, CA Institute of Integral Studies, Clinical Psychologist
As a psychology professor, I have struggled for decades to teach concepts that Ditta Oliker explains with the utmost ease, using the brilliantly original term survival system to describe those residues of childhood that prevent us from living our best possible lives. ------- Barbara Ingram, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology
Finding Snow White is one of those rare, powerful stories about resilience and reinvention. The film is ultimately about the triumph of the human spirit – how, in the wake of unimaginable tragedy, Ditta Olicker emerges as a true hero and inspiration. ------- Cliff Traiman Cinematography, INC.
The film was a moving illustration of human repair and flowering in the face of adversity. It provided a glimpse into our ever-evolving understanding of connection, belonging, and what it means to live a worthy life. ------- Name withheld for professional reasons
Finding Snow White gave me goosebumps. The central character Ditta is an inspiring wounded healer – making good use of her suffering through first healing herself and then others. The film captures her poignant story with compelling dialogue and masterful videography. -------Maryanne Mooney, Director The Worthy Leader
After Ditta’s teenage son is murdered in 1973 she becomes a PhD psychotherapist, practicing to age 91. She and a former patient inspire the boyhood friend of her long-lost son by revealing the meaning of the Snow White metaphor and how people break free of their past to achieve their inner potential.
See the 3 minute trailer below. Or rent the full-version 27-minute film.
Below is a post-screening discussion. (Push browser back arrow to exit back to this page.)
Synopsis
In this uplifting story, people transform past tragedy and adversity into wellness and hope. After 47 years, Jonathan reconnects with Ditta Oliker the mother of his boyhood friend David, who was victim of a mass murder in the Santa Cruz mountains in 1973. Jonathan finds Ditta had emerged from that tragedy to become a psychotherapist and author, creatively achieving insight to help people break free of their past to achieve their inner potential. Ditta and a former patient, Kirby, a Broadway actor, reveal how a "childhood survival system" confines adults to past relationships even without their conscious knowledge. To explain it, Ditta interprets the Snow White story as a metaphor of human psychology, and Kirby tells his personal story of breaking free. They inspire Jonathan to reassess the alienation which drove him as a teenager and see a bigger picture. Also, while visiting Ditta, Jonathan discovers he left a poem he wrote as a teenager among his friend’s papers. It strangely foretold Jonathan would come full circle many years later, to cope with what happened.
Jonathan learns how Ditta dramatically broke free from mourning, going from the dark side of the moon, the "death side", to the light side, to the "life side". She heals herself through healing others. She helps patients free themselves from psychological constraints to further achieve their own inner potential.
Ditta goes to school, becomes a PhD psychotherapist at age 50, develops a creative approach to therapy and helps patients for the next 40 years, into her 90's. She publishes a book with many case studies.
Ditta retells the Snow White fairy tale as a metaphor to explain how children create a “childhood survival system” to adapt to parents or families, a system which constrains their potential when they become adults even without their conscious knowledge of it. Kirby, a former patient and successful Broadway actor and lyricist, describes how Ditta’s approach helped him break free of his own “childhood survival system," which was "driving me nuts... and making me so sad."
Jonathan reflects on his own alienation as a teenager in the urban sprawl of the San Fernando Valley, which he left behind. After listening to Ditta and Kirby, he is inspired to see a larger picture of what he was fleeing, and how to move forward positively.
Looking through his dead friend’s old papers 47 years later while visiting Ditta, Jonathan finds his own teenage poem, left there. It strangely foretells he will come full circle to cope better with what happened so long ago, which reconnecting with Ditta now has helped him to do.
Why this film?
This film demonstrates how people can achieve positive self-renewal at any age. Ditta Oliker broke free from the paralysis of mourning in middle age. She remade her life and provided life healing psychotherapy to patients until age 91. She is a testament to inspire hope and positive choices.
The film also reveals some of the psychological forces that direct the course of our lives. Dr. Ditta Oliker’s “childhood survival system” is instantly recognizable. Her use of the Snow White tale to explain it, is very creative. Kirby Tepper, one of her patients describes firsthand his own experience how as a child he adapted to the needs of his parents, that he perceived, without consciously knowing it. Yet he realized his parents were not at fault. He contributed to the “survival system” which so constrained him as an adult. Realizing what was going on, with Ditta’s help, allowed him to break free so that he could pursue his potential. Kirby has been a successful Broadway actor, lyricist, and author.
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Finally, the film could lead some viewers to reflect on the anxiety of their teenage years in a useful way, as I’m doing. As a teenager I fled the San Fernando Valley because it “sucked the life out of me,” as I said in the film. Ever since I’ve thought I acted cowardly by running away, taking the easy way out. After listening to Ditta and Kirby while shooting the film, I’m rethinking. Without me realizing back then, the “Valley” represented an emotional power over me. Running from it towards discovery and living one’s own life was a positive step. But even after leaving a place or a relationship, its power can still reside inside you, even below consciousness, affecting what you feel, think, and do. Answering Ditta’s question “Whose need is being met?” (your own or someone else’s?) is a chance to explore the larger picture. Perhaps even below consciousness. I appreciated Kirby when he observed “it gives you a sense of agency.”
Jonathan Villet, Writer & Interviewer
Anyone interested in psychology, whether for personal learning or pursuing a career will see important emotions and concepts, up close and personal when they meet Ditta, Kirby and Jonathan in this film.
Fiona McDougall, Producer / Director
For live and virtual screening opportunities, & partnership opportunities to bring this important story to your community, please contact: Fiona @ owcom.com or Tel. +415 355 1935
Film Information & Screenings
Filmmaker conversations: screenings available
This film is available for screenings, both online and in-person with the filmmakers! For example see the lively discussion after the “My Health Angel” organization invited their national community to see the film. Sabrina Bennardo, LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker), filmmakers Fiona McDougall and Jonathan Villet, and audience members contributed their thoughts and insights. This was posted on social media.
Please email the Producer: Fiona @ owcom.com
People
Interviewee: Ditta Oliker
Ditta M. Oliker, PhD, clinical psychologist, age 91, is author of The Light Side of the Moon, Reclaiming Your Lost Potential. She started practicing as a psychotherapist in the late-1970’s, after obtaining her degree at age 50.
Dr. Oliker helps patients attain the opportunity to become “unstuck” to achieve their potential, and positively change their own lives.
Previously Ditta was a producer of improvisational theater at the Mark Taper Forum of the Los Angeles Music Center.
Interviewee: Kirby Tepper
Producer / Director: Fiona McDougall
Fiona is an experienced video producer and creative professional. She oversees and develops all creative outputs at OneWorld Communications including video for the streaming/social media and TV, radio, photography, and graphic design for digital, print and exhibitions. She has developed multimedia campaigns in Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin among other languages.
Fiona has produced videos for GSA, Veterans Affairs, SF Department of Health, OEWD, California Public Utilities Commission, and EDD among others. Many of her productions have won industry awards. PBS/KQED-TV released Fiona’s documentary film But I Love the Zine in April, 2019 and film festivals showed it in theaters in 2019. She shot, directed and produced this 16 min. film.
Fiona also has been an international photojournalist working in Italy and Africa for international newspapers and UN agencies. The New York Times nominated her for a Pulitzer for her coverage of the civil war and famine in Somalia. She lives in San Francisco.
Fiona shot produced and directed, But I Love the Zine,Jonathan Villet wrote the script. The doc was screened at several film festivals in 2019 and nominated for Best Documentary, We Make Movies International Film Festival 2021.
Writer & Interviewer: Jonathan Villet
Jonathan Villet has written documentary film scripts, public service announcements, brands, a stage play, treatments, and articles. He is a creative director and writer for communications campaigns – many winners of Telly, Addy and other awards, in multiple media (video/TV, web, social, radio). He founded OneWorld Communications, a media creation company in San Francisco in 1999 (www.OneWorldSF.com) which primarily creates media content for public service programs to help people improve their own lives.
For Finding Snow White he did research, scriptwriting, interviewing and editing. He also wrote the script for the documentary film But I Love the Zine broadcast on KQED’s Truly California show, shown in several film festivals including the recent We Make Movies International Film Festival September 2021 in Los Angeles.
Jonathan has worked extensively for the United Nations in Italy, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Sudan, and multiple other countries as a writer, media producer, project manager and trainer to create communications that promote disease eradication, sustainable development and environmental protection. He lives in San Francisco.
Director of Photography: Eric Jackson
Eric is an award-winning Director & Director of Photography who began making films not too long after he learned to walk. For the last 15 years Eric has been Director and Director of Photography at Shot Glass in Los Angeles. Eric literally grew up in the film industry and quickly moved up the ranks, holding a variety of positions during his upward climb - production assistant, grip/electric, production coordinator, production manager. Eventually he became a powerful, creative force in post-production. His experience in each position has been a benefit to his directing style and abilities.
For Finding Snow White, Eric was the Director of Photography and chief Lighting Technician.
Eric's talents have earned him an Emmy nomination, three Cine Golden Eagles, dozens of Tellys, and a couple of American Advertising Awards (ADDYs). Some of Eric’s clients include Levi Strauss & Co., Gillette/Venus, Intel, Chevron, Union Bank, the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, County of Los Angeles, and many more. He lives in Southern California.
Illustrator: Ann Arnold
Ann Arnold is a still-life painter and author and illustrator of children's books. Born in Marin County, she has lived in Berkeley for the last 40 years. Her early works, from the 1970s, were executed in gouache on paper, but now she works mostly in oil paint on walnut panels. Her subjects are chiefly fruits and vegetables from her own garden and the local farmers’ markets, but she occasionally paints old pottery or porcelain from her own small collection. She has had exhibitions at a number of galleries both in London and in the United States; currently her work is represented by the North Point Gallery in Berkeley.
For Finding Snow White, Ann designed and created unique pen and watercolor drawings to accompany each beat of the Snow White fairytale.