A former El Dorado resident's award winning documentary film about a family's battle with autism is set to premiere on Amazon Prime and Apple today.
When Alexander Jefferey's film company, BeSpoke works, was approached to produce a short birthday film for a local woman, he had no idea it would blossom into a full length documentary about the struggles and triumphs of Evan James, a young man diagnosed with autism.
"Paul Burns, Evan's stepfather approached myself and Paul Peterson, who I own Bespoke Works LLC with, about making a birthday video for Beth. She had her 60th birthday coming up and he wanted to surprise her with something special and so he asked us to make a video where her friends told the story of her life and journey with Evan and the work that she's done in the community. And while we were making that birthday video. I think the three of us realizes this is a really powerful story and I think it could be done in a bigger and more cinematic way," Jeffery said.
Jeffery's first feature length documentary, 'You Have No Idea' won best Southern feature at the 2022 Hot Springs Documentary film festival. Jefferey said it was quite different than having a script and storyboards of a narrative film.
"With the documentary, we had 30 hours of interviews and you know, we had a loose outline of what the story was , sequentially, just from the birthday film that we had made. You kind of have to go through all those interviews and figure out the puzzle of the movie in post-production- in the editing process- and figure out how the narrative through line really flows and becomes its own thing," he said. "In the process of making it so we had white boards with outlines and different story beats and we highlighted certain things that each person said and tried to take these puzzle pieces and then figure out how it all fit and mold it together to tell a story."
While Hollywood has long relegated autism to a trope or near superpower, according to Jeffery, he said it was important not to represent people on the spectrum as a monolith.
"Representation is incredibly important on the screen in all facets," he said. "Evan's parents say this a lot 'When you've not one person with autism, you've met one person with autism' no two stories are the exact same. So we knew going into making of this movie that we're not going to be able to represent autism as a whole, but let's do our best to tell Evan's story and Beth's story and really show what this journey has been like."
Jeffery said he is proud to represent El Dorado and the compassion of the town with the film.
"I grew up in El Dorado. I consider it my home and I'm really excited that El Dorado is going to be represented on Amazon Prime and on Apple and out in the world for people to see and in a way that I think is really great and representative of this, you know, beautiful community that surrounded Evan and I hope people buy, and rent, and watch it on Amazon Prime and support the community," he said.
Photo courtesy of. BeSpoke Works A screengrab from the film