INTERVIEW: 'LUCKEY' filmmaker Laura Longsworth

Slotted to premiere at Boston’s Independent Film Festival 2:45 p.m. on Sunday, April 26 at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square, Arlington-based filmmaker Laura Longsworth says crafting her documentary film “LUCKEY” was a labor of love.

“The lives of every single member of Tom's family were deeply altered by his paralysis, on an emotional and practical level,“ she tells Loaded Gun Boston. “The year or more after his accident was just so hard in terms of reconciling emotionally with the reality of his paralysis and figuring out his care.”

In the documentary, Luckey is coping with recent and dramatic changes in his life. Overnight, he went from able-bodied to a wheelchair. The sculptor and architect was designing a three-story-tall climbable sculpture, the masterpiece of his career building interactive art, when he fell through a window at the Boston Children’s Museum and became completely paralyzed.

“I've come to think that while the details are probably never the same twice, there is probably a universality to their experience,” Longsworth continues. “By that I mean that anyone who has had a family member who is very ill or is injured can probably identify with one aspect or another of the film.”

In a candid interview with Loaded Gun Boston, Longsworth chats about her protagonist’s emotionally raw journey after the accident, offers advice to young, up-and-coming filmmakers and gives perspective from a documentary filmmaker's point of view regarding the booming film scene in Boston.

Click here for the complete interview with Longsworth. Click here for tickets.

--Photo from Laura Longsworth's "Luckey"