Farewell to Hollywood

Farewell to Hollywood is a love story unlike any you've seen before. The life's wish of a terminally ill 17-year-old girl, Regina Diane Nicholson, leads to a deep, loving, and controversial relationship with 55-year-old filmmaker, Henry Corra. With mortality's clock relentlessly ticking, Reggie risks everything to fight for the life, art and love she chooses. Farewell to Hollywood is a raw, unexpected love story, both record and flower of the clear-eyed but utterly romantic commitment of two people to art, poetry, care and the potential beauty of every moment together, to the very end. Simultaneously supported by their community of filmmakers, clergy and health care professionals and imperiled by those who would seemingly go to any length to end their misunderstood relationship, Reggie and Henry are together to the last, and beyond.

In a recurring poetic image, 17-year-old Regina Diane Nicholson swings between heaven and earth on a breathtakingly high cliff by the sea. Reggie is a tomboy struggling with cancer, her parents and her dream of making a film. She impresses us with her loving, strong personality and wisdom beyond her years, as well as her morbid sense of humor. When director Henry Corra met 17-year-old filmmaker Regina Nicholson at a film festival nearly three years ago, he agreed to help her make a feature film. What developed over nearly two years is a powerful friendship and poignant relationship between Reggie and Henry. He became her collaborator, friend and defender in her fight to find artistic and personal freedom. When Reggie turns 18 and can make decisions on her own, things become even more intense. This film is a poetic fairytale about love and death, holding on and letting go, one that invites us to discuss the relationship between filmmaker, subject and family. An eclectic mix of images with the intimacy of a video diary or home movie, it is filmed both by Henry and by Reggie and supplemented by their text message exchanges, images from her favorite movies, and fairytale-like scenes with songs that together form a heartwarming, but also heartbreaking and controversial ode to Reggie’s life.

“One of my favorite films this year. It moved me to tears while at the same time raising fundamental questions about what a documentary is.” – Ally Derks, Director, IDFA, Int’l Documentary Festival Amsterdam

“One of 9 documentaries to watch for in 2014. The only US feature in competition at IDFA, FAREWELL TO HOLLYWOOD is a heart-wrenching story.” – Film Society of Lincoln Center

FILM FESTIVALS

DFA – Int’l Documentary Festival of Amsterdam
EDOX - Lithuania – WINNER, Second Prize
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
Visions du Reel, Nyon
Planete Doc, Warsaw – WINNER, Canon Cinematography Prize
Doc Edge New Zealand
Biografilm, Bologna
Gdansk DocFest
Dokfilm Norway
DMZ Docs, South Korea
Kinolitopys - Kiev Documentary
Kosovo Docufest
Message to Man, St. Petersburg
DocUtah
Sidewalk Film Festival, Birmingham, AL