To my friends and families.

I post today to ask for your help. I know this is a long post but I hope you will indulge me 🙂

Since our son Mathew was very young, he has tried to describe to us the images and the stories that were forming in his head. We all remember his “directing” debut telling us to fall down and act dead on film when he was in elementary school. Not surprisingly, film has become the canvas he chose to share his stories with the world.

Mathew wrote, directed and produced 2 seasons of his multi-award winning web series teenagers. During the last 3 years, Chuck and I have supported and help fund his efforts, helping to make this story come to life. We have reached out to our incredibly supportive neighbours and friends to “use” their house, for their help and much more. His 2 amazing and supportive brothers have shared their space, opened their rooms, lending their clothes and whatever was asked to allow him to film at our house. I am incredibly grateful to all for these acts of kindness.

The grant and funding process with all levels of government has been incredibly frustrating as he moves past the student projects life. To continue his dream, he is now launching a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo and reaching out to friends, families and anyone else who would like to support a young filmmaker trying to bring his stories to life. The campaign is to help fund season 3 as well as his first feature film dealing with the incredibly powerful and negative impact of Fentanyl, once again exposing real life tragedy and drama, experienced by various tranche of our society. You can expect it to be edgy, multicultural and real.

I know the end product will be wonderful because Mathew is a great storyteller of course, but also because in all his projects, he partners with his close friend and incredibly talented DOP Dmitry and best friend Sara.

If teenagers is new to you, you will watch this web series and find some moments difficult….but it has struck a chord with thousands of fan because it represents the real life struggle of some of our teens out there today.  The show portrays LGBT teenagers trying to navigate through high school, the impact and use of drugs in our schools and the multicultural reality of our country. He includes characters of Native, South Asian, African and Caucasian descent all struggling through their teenage years together. This upcoming season, he will introduce a French Canadian character, a nod to his heritage, but also to our country’s bilingual reality. This is a painting of our society that needs to be told and we are so very proud of him.

And so I reach out to you again, friends and families, far and near, and ask that you consider helping and sharing this campaign with your friends and families and anyone you think may be able to help. It is really important for the success of a campaign to become “in demand” on Indiegogo which means that they will promote the campaign on their site. The level of donations in the first few days impacts directly that status.

À mes amies et à la parenté québécoise, un petit mot en français pour vous remercier de considérer d’aider Mathew dans sa campagne de financement. Je vous envoies un bise électronique 🙂

To donate, visit: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/teenagers-season-3-and-more-lgbt-drama#/