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Nigel Stuckey first began noticing an enormous distinction in 2019.
The veteran London police sergeant noticed extra overdose calls, largely involving the artificial opioid fentanyl, and extra individuals dwelling on the road.
After retiring two years in the past, Stuckey continued strolling the identical streets he as soon as patrolled throughout his 32-year profession. However as a substitute of a gun and badge, he carried a digicam to interview homeless individuals for his debut documentary Atrocity, an 85-minute exploration of homelessness in London.
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“It’s going to be difficult to watch,” Stuckey mentioned of his movie that debuts Sunday on the Forest Metropolis Movie Pageant. “It’s an uncomfortable reality. You can choose not to see (it), but at the end of the day, it’s still there.”
Atrocity differs from different homelessness documentaries that characteristic largely consultants and some “chosen” unhoused individuals, mentioned Stuckey, whose movie hass solely unhoused individuals and one knowledgeable, addictions specialist Dr. Sharon Koivu.
“As this evolved, it really became clear to me that when I would speak to people on the street, they really wanted to be heard,” Stuckey mentioned. “And so that is sort of when I changed my emphasis and I decided I wanted to give them a voice, let them be heard.”
The largest takeaway from the documentary is that almost all of London’s homeless individuals are “medically compromised” – a time period Stuckey makes use of for these going through habit, bodily disabilities and psychological well being points. One topic of his movie is a former landscaper who suffered a stroke; one other is a blind woman dwelling in a tent.
Whereas capturing the documentary, Stuckey additionally encountered Cheryl Sheldon, an illiterate woman in her 60s who was pushing a procuring cart.
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“At that point, she was living in a stairwell at the market,” mentioned Stuckey, who interviewed Sheldon a number of occasions.
Nigel Stuckey interviewed Cheryl Sheldon a number of occasions for his documentary Atrocity. She died after she was discovered with essential accidents in her London condominium on June 22. (Free Press file photograph)
Sheldon had been staying at a shelter till she was critically damage in an assault and not felt secure there, Stuckey mentioned. She grew to become hooked on methamphetamine as a manner to deal with life on the road.
Sheldon lastly escaped homelessness in December when she moved into an public-housing condominium. However she died in hospital after being discovered critically injured in her condominium June 22. Sheldon’s boyfriend, George Curtis, 44, is charged with second-degree homicide.
After Sheldon’s demise, Stuckey reached out to her brother Mark, who lives in Quebec, and confirmed him the footage he shot throughout a number of conferences with Sheldon.
Mark Sheldon got here to London this week for the disclosing of a memorial bench devoted to his sister. Stuckey was there to movie the occasion.
The retired police officer has no formal coaching in filmmaking and did the entire capturing, writing and enhancing himself.
“It was basically my film school,” he mentioned of the self-funded challenge. “I learned everything on YouTube and trial and error.”
Sunday’s screening shall be adopted by a question-and-answer section with Stuckey and Koivu, moderated by Free Press reporter Randy Richmond.
IF YOU GO
What: Screening of Atrocity
When: Sunday at 4:30 p.m.
The place: Wolf Efficiency Corridor, 251 Dundas St.
Tickets: Obtainable at fcff.ca or at Wolf Efficiency Corridor field workplace
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