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~ Join us for a very special film event!~

May I Be Frank
Film Screening followed by Q&A Session
with Frank Ferrante and director Gregg Marks
Thursday, July 15, 2010
6:30 pm

Tickets $15 available online here in advance or day of the show at the door!

With
Frank Ferrante, Ryland Engelhart, Conor Gaffney,
Cary Mosier, Matthew Engelhart, ‘Izzy’ Angelo Ferrante

The Filmmakers
Cary Mosier, Ryland Engelhart, Conor Gaffney
Directors/Producers/Camera

Gregg Marks
Director/ Editor/Camera

Produced by Be Love Productions
In Association with Here Now Productions

Frank Ferrante is a 54 year old Sicilian from Brooklyn living in San Francisco. A lover of life, great food, beautiful women and a good laugh, Frank is also a drug addict, morbidly obese, prediabetic, and fighting Hepatitis C. He’s estranged from his daughter, single, and struggling with depression. Frank knows that life can be better than this, and is looking for a way out.

May I Be Frank documents the transformation of Frank Ferrante’s life. He unknowingly stumbles into a local restaurant in San Francisco, Café Gratitude, a raw, organic and vegan café. As he becomes friends with the staff, he keeps returning to the café where he feels welcomed and free from his collapsing personal life. On one such visit, Frank is asked by Ryland, one of the servers, “What is one thing you want to do before you die?” Frank replies “I want to fall in love one more time, but no one will love me looking the way I do.”

Inspired by the possibility of helping Frank, Ryland invites him to come into the café everyday for the next month. Armed with a camera and a wide open heart, Ryland soon enrolls his brother Cary, and Conor, his best friend, to participate in supporting Frank’s transformation. The final agreement is made that for the next 42 days, Frank will turn his life over to three twenty-something young men committed to his healing and prepared to coach him physically, emotionally and spiritually. Frank will eat only raw food, practice gratitude, visit local holistic practitioners, and get a weekly colonic. Ryland, Conor, and Cary get to support and witness Frank’s miraculous transformation. Frank gets a new body, a clearer mind, and most importantly, a soaring spirit.

Over those 42 days, the four men go on the ride of their lives. Setting out to help Frank lose weight and get healthy, no one anticipated the profound impact this journey would have on the lives of countless others. Through Frank’s story of love, redemption, and transformation, the viewers witness the power of change for themselves and the world. May I Be Frank documents the essence of the human condition and what it truly means to fall in love again.

Director’s Statement
We began to create the film MAY I BE FRANK, without the realized intention of making a feature length film. We recognized Frank’s struggle, and it inspired us to offer our support. Having never made a feature length film before we were fueled by the naiveté of young filmmakers stepping into a world we knew nothing about. We did not set out to make an epic film that would capture the struggle of the human spirit ‐ we set out to care for a friend and hopefully save his life.

Sometimes there actually is a method to people’s madness and then other times there’s just madness without the method. What we eventually captured on film was nothing that we had planned for. Frank turned out to be the perfect person for the film. Frank eloquently describes the process of transforming his life, while willingly participating in a way of living and eating that was completely foreign. The circumstances of Frank’s life are not events that everyone can relate to; however his emotional experience of living is powerfully relatable.

At a moment when we as humans are becoming more dependent of pharmaceuticals to get through the lives we have created, loosing relationships through divorce, blame, anger and selfjudgment ‐ MAY I BE FRANK tells the story of the tenacity of the human spirit, the strength to start all over and fall in love one more time.

Sponsored by
The Manor House School of Cape Cod
Educating Exceptional
Children with Autism

Links:

mayibefrankferrante.com/may-i-be-frank-movie
mayibefrankmovie.wordpress.com/index
www.facebook.com/pages/May-I-Be-Frank/52665645883