Screening: A Documentary Feature Film directed by Alan Kryszak

A Documentary Feature Film directed by Alan Kryszak

Hungry Now Synopsis, Press Materials & Private Preview at FilmFreeway.com
We've all driven right by them. We've all walked on by, crossing to the other side out of caution.
Who are they? What do they want? How did children grow up only to climb through a dumpster
for half-eaten food, & end their winter days in a tent in the richest country in the world?
"Hungry Now" hopes to connect a few dots, connecting the kids being cared for by teachers, to
the sketchy shadows off the road. Voices you've never heard before are here, the mic is on and
it's not what you may expect to hear: the young couple by the dumpster; the man with the dark
hat by the abandoned gas station in Bangor, Maine, the man bundled into his wheelchair with
everything he will ever own, by the Penobscot bridge, not asking you for a thing.
These voices, including many of "The Helpers", as Mr. Rogers called them, are contrasted by
current Middle School students in the 2021 Cobscook TREE program, which applied a complete
trauma-sensitive, educational wellness plan to children in Downeast Maine. This film is about
childhood hunger and its memories, but it can't be about one thing. "Hungry Now" traces the
tragic path where a fresh-faced Middle Schooler starts below the poverty line, & lands with
stability or chaos, depending on what lies between those school & adult years.

The UMM Downweast Doc film crew and researchers are Sam LaRusse, Nicholas Sanborn,
Amanda Sawyer, Robin Hadlock Seeley, Hannah Somers-Jones, Suzie Milkowich, Aiyla Petty,
Amanda Quinn, Megan Racila, & Beth Staples. Kryszak's first film:"Whatever Works: Exploring
Opiate Addiction" premiered on MainePublic Television in 2017, winning an Excellence Award
at the Docs Without Borders International Festival. "'Who Made You In America?" & "When The
Chevy Breaks" (How Small Towns Fix Big Problems), also premiered on MPBN, featured on
Morning Edition, The Portland Press Herald & Maine Today. The films are on the PBS website
have been broadcast yearly. "Privacy & The Power of Secrets" premiered as finalist at The
Hague Global Cinema Festival & Sweden Film Awards before the Boston premiere, where Peter
Keough of the Globe.

We've all driven right by them. We've all walked on by, crossing to the other side out of

caution. Who are they? What do they want? How did children grow up only to climb through a
dumpster for half-eaten food & end their winter days in a tent in the richest country in the
world?

"Hungry Now" hopes to connect a few dots, the kids being cared for by teachers, to the sketchy
shadows off the road. Voices you've never heard before and it's not what you may expect to
hear: the young couple by the dumpster; the man with the dark hat by the abandoned gas station
in Bangor, Maine, the man bundled into his wheelchair with everything he will ever own, by the
Penobscot bridge, not asking you for a thing.