SPECIAL JURY PRIZE WINNER - Hamptons International Film Festival
Alzheimer's • Caregiving • Mental Health • Jewish Studies • Brain Health • Dementia
Date of Completion: 2024 | Run Time: 90 minutes | Language: English | Captions: Yes | Director, Writer, Producer: Heidi Levitt | Producer: Vanessa Perez | Executive Producer: Alex Gibney | Director of Photography: Lisa Rinzler | Editor: Simeon Hutner | Supervising Editor: Toby Shimin
Life changes when Charlie, a 57-year-old talented graphic designer, father, and charismatic community leader, discovers that his recent fogginess is due to Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease. His wife of 30 years Heidi Levitt, is determined to better understand the disease, learn how to live their best life with it, forge a new path forward and document every step along the journey. Over the course of four years, what she captures as they criss-cross the country is a testament to the strength, resilience, and humor of the human spirit. While Charlie’s cognitive facilities diminish, his charm, warmth and appeal take center stage, illuminating what might otherwise have been a dark journey into a story of love and a reminder that life is really about our relationships.
V Magazine | Sinead McInerney
"In Walk With Me, Heidi Levitt does something radical. There are no swelling arcs, no tidy awakenings, no promises of redemption. Instead, the film about her husband’s diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s lingers with what most narratives avoid: care as a daily practice, grief without a finish line, love without guarantees."
In the Seats | David Voight
“[The film] is a poignant look, not just at the story of how a family deals with a life changing health diagnosis but ultimately how they push through it in a documentary that speaks to the human experience more than this critic honestly thought it would. We all need to see Walk With Me."
The Wee Review | Kevin Ibbotson-Wight
"Walk With Me is by its nature an emotional watch, as we know there is only one way the story can go. Yet it’s very much a love story as Heidi coaxes her husband through the most difficult think they’ll ever have to face. Charlie is still an articulate man, and is able to verbalise the almost imperceptible ways his mind is beginning to fail him. It’s refreshingly direct and unsentimental, with not a hint of mawkishness and self-pity. Perhaps the most heart-wringing moment is when the weight of it all hits their son in a devastating wave of clarity. Clear-eyed and frank, but buoyed by boundless love, this is an exceptional portrait of an ordinary family finding something extraordinary in themselves."
Overly Honest Reviews | Chris Jones
"RAVING REVIEW: WALK WITH ME is exactly what its title promises: an invitation to stay present as a marriage reshapes itself around early-onset Alzheimer’s. Shot over four years by filmmaker and casting director Heidi Levitt, the film tracks her husband, Charlie Hess—an artist, father, and community builder—through the incremental changes that a diagnosis brings. There’s no manufactured drama here. Instead, we get the paces of real life: clinic visits, family conversations, small victories, and the tougher days when words slip, plans falter, and the world narrows. The honesty of that approach is the documentary’s power. It doesn’t explain Alzheimer’s so much as it lets you inhabit its slow encroachment, moment by moment."
AWARDS
Special Jury Prize Winner | Hamptons International Film Festival
FESTIVALS
AFI Fest
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Galway Film Fleadh
Maine International Film Festival
Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival
Santa Barbara International Film Festival
Vermont International Film Festival
Woodstock Film Festival
SCREENINGS
APHA Annual Meeting
Lincoln Theatre
Massachusetts General Hospital
All screening information is available on the website: https://www.walkwithmedoc.com/screenings