Chicago Underground Film Festival and Filmmakers Summit 2008

This story begins with an ending. A woman is dead. Susana Villa-SeÒor, a 29-year-old single scientist living in a central Ohio suburb has killed herself. Susana had suicidal tendencies; this last successful act is one in a series of desperate attempts. Susana's lab work improved the design of artificial limbs. Her research was extensive and personal. Stella, Susana's twin sister, is a very successful corporate professional working in the city. She is utterly in control of her environment and aspiring upward although emotionally stunted and vacant. Stella is trying to function as an adult in spite of a lingering and unresolved child-hood trauma; she was kidnapped as a young girl and held by her captor for four years. As Stella's corporate professionalism begins to weaken under the pressure of her grief, she slowly and compulsively takes up where Susana left off. Stella eventually begins attending meetings for people who have survived multiple suicide attempts--an array of broken and comic individuals who unknowingly help her confront her loss and sorrow. For Stella, her sister is lost. She is loss and history. Her recovery is handicapped. She is surrounded by trauma, drifting from no sympathy to pure empathy. Stella accidentally crashes her car into a tree which to on-lookers, seems like a failed suicide attempt. In the end, Stella remains a bad driver, though now she feels the company of those who reflect and share her emotion. Can she be healed? Can Anyone?