Sue Loncar looked through the pages of her daughter Grace's photo album.
“She was so beautiful,” Loncar said of her youngest child. “She was so precious. She was so wanted.”
Loncar lost Grace to suicide in 2016.
“I still think about my 16-year-old girlfriend,” Loncar said. “She will be 23 years old.”
Loncar shares her story as executive producer of the feature-length documentary “Losing Grace Finding Hope.”
“I think the purpose is to show that depression doesn't discriminate at all,” Loncar said.
“She really had everything from the definition of 'outside world.' She was loved.”
“I remember that day like it was yesterday,” Loncar says in the film. “The day I lost Grace.”
“Suicide is an epidemic,” said Marcia Carroll, a family friend and writer/producer/director of Losing Grace.
“I don't think we can help others get through it if we don't show it.”
The filmmakers hope the documentary will help dispel the stigma around talking about mental health.
“Why my precious daughter?” Loncar asks in the film. “The other side of that is, why isn't she who she is?”
“So to others who have suffered from the suicide of a loved one, we must offer hope and evidence that it is possible,” Carroll said.
“It means we're much better off doing things together, rather than alone,” Loncar said. “There will be a rainbow at the end.”
“Losing Grace Finding Hope” is produced on behalf of the Grace Loncar Foundation. The film premiered at the Greenwich International Film Festival and is seeking a $10,000 Social Impact Grant.
The film will be screened at the Dallas International Film Festival on April 30th at 6pm and May 2nd at 4pm.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8355) or text 988. Masu.
