Film: All That Lies Between Us

Blending interviews, poetry, photography, and music, All That Lies Between Us is a moving account of the life and work of Maria Mazziotti Gillan, the award-winning author and poet whose humble upbringing in an Italian-American enclave of Paterson inspired much of her writing and led her to establish innovative and highly respected literary ventures in that historic city, including the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College.

The film features interviews with Maria as she reminisces and shares insights about her life, including her student days in Paterson when being Italian was sometimes ridiculed, and when she had the same teacher who taught one of the city’s most celebrated literary figures, poet Allen Ginsberg.

The documentary, which is written, produced and directed by Kevin Carey and Mark Hillringhouse, incorporates images of Paterson that juxtapose sad urban decay with thrilling natural wonders, and remnants of an industrial past with scenes from contemporary life. It also includes footage of Ms. Gillan’s class at Binghamton University-SUNY, and scenes of the campus and city.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan used poetry as a way out of an urban childhood that was happy but lower class to success in the writing world.

Watch the film here (56 minutes)

Kevin Carey has won "Best of the Net 2011," "Best Screenplay" (2009) at The New Hampshire Film Festival and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

His one act plays have been staged at The New Hampshire Theater Project and The New Works Festival in Newburyport, Ma. The One Fifteen To Penn Station is his first book of poetry. He teaches Writing at Salem State University, and is also a seventh grade basketball coach in Beverly, MA.
Visit his website at www.kevincareywriter.com

Mark Hillringhouse is a published poet, essayist, and photographer whose works have been published in The American Poetry Review, The Paterson Literary Review, The New York Times, The New Jersey Monthly, The Paris Review, and many other anthologies, books and magazines.

His photographs, which have won many awards, have been widely exhibited in area galleries. He has recently published a book of photographs and poems, titled Between Frames (Serving House Books). He is a member of the English Department at Passaic County Community College.  Visit his photography website at mhillringhouse.zenfolio.com.