I saw the documentary, "If I Could," at the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival in Colorado Springs.

The festival, a small but highly selective event, is a showcase for the best women directors in the country - and many of the films are breathtaking.

"If I Could" stood out from that stellar group. It is an incredible portrait of a family in crisis. It looks straight in the eye of the worst social plagues of our day - incest, juvenile rage, drug abuse, brutality - and yet is oddly exhilarating.

The filmmakers have produced a film that refuses to reduce these issues to sensational headlines, and instead have undertaken the painful process of showing all the complexities involved in healing terrible wrongs.

This is not a film that fades from memory. It sears itself into the brain.

This film could change the juvenile justice system, if our society would rise to the challenge. No one, after seeing If I Could, could ever again cast unthinking judgment on a child.

It took a lot of courage to produce this film, and this deed should not go unnoticed.

Sincerely,
Abigail Wright
Independent filmmaker
Boulder, CO

I am writing to tell you about a movie that changed my life, called IF I COULD. Within 48 hours of viewing this film for the first time, I made the decision to leave a very comfortable and prosperous life to move to Pennsylvania and be a part of an organization that will help America's families heal and move past the very issues this film addresses.

IF I COULD is the voice of young people who are not allowed to speak for themselves.

If you do not connect with the story of the family this film features, then you are a very lucky person. Too many of us unfortunately do connect with the storyline -- the sadness of neglect, the loneliness and shame of abuse.

Sincerely,
Heidi Coons
Robert Worrell Association