What happens to a person’s identity and reason for being when the circumstances of his/her life are suddenly and radically altered? What gives someone the will or fate to survive against all odds? How does one balance the gift of survival against the suffering that can come with it? What is it that ultimately gives meaning to a life?

In Forest of Swords (working title), we explore these and other existential and emotional questions through the personal story and perspective of Dr. Grace Dammann, who quite miraculously survived a catastrophic car crash on the Golden Gate Bridge. On the afternoon of May 21, 2008, Grace rushed from her job as a senior physician at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital where she was a revered clinician as well as dear friend to the patients, doctors, and nurses with whom she worked. Late to a dental appointment after picking up her daughter, Grace drove, uncharacteristically, in the left lane of the bridge. Halfway across, her car was hit head-on by a driver who veered over the divide. Her daughter survived with minor injuries, but Grace broke seventeen bones, punctured her diaphragm and a lung, lacerated her liver, and had all of her vital abdominal organs shoved up into her chest cavity. After inducing a coma and performing multiple surgeries, doctors were amazed when Grace emerged forty-eight days later with her cognitive abilities intact. Yet once the thrill and euphoria of survival had settled, the hard, painful work of recovery began.

Our documentary follows Grace as she engages in the long rehabilitation process, exploring the many different layers of physical, psychological, and spiritual healing that are at the heart of this wrenching and inspiring story. We began filming Grace the day she moved back home, after over a year in various hospitals and rehab facilities following her accident. Home for Grace is Green Gulch Farm, the Buddhist community set in the hills above Muir Beach in Marin County, where she has lived for nearly 20 years with her partner, Fu, an ordained Buddhist priest, and their adopted teenage daughter, Sabrina.

As longtime, dear friends of Grace and her family, we have been privileged to have access to a remarkably personal realm of the drama as it has unfolded. Our camera follows Grace through her re-entry into her home life, Buddhist practice, and the rich community she is part of.  We observe the many rehab appointments and consultations with surgeons, neurologists, physical therapists, and other practitioners in her life, witnessing the triumphs, the setbacks, the difficult decisions, the tedious and painful work, and the joy of being alive as she takes each new (literal and figurative) step forward. We see and hear Grace’s inspirational speech at the Unsung Heroes of Compassion event with the Dalai Lama (her first public event almost a year after the accident), and her Dharma talk at the Green Gulch zendo shortly after returning home.

Still a work in progress, the film is about the power of community and the reinvention of identity and purpose that is unfolding for Grace as she navigates through it all with her trademark humor, intelligence, determination and formidable spirit.

About the Filmmakers

Helen S. Cohen (Producer/Director) is an award-winning filmmaker and working artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Until the end of 2004, when she became an independent producer, Helen was co-director of Women's Educational Media, now called GroundSpark, a nonprofit organization specializing in the production and distribution of social issue documentaries. She is the co-creator of GroundSpark’s acclaimed Respect for All Project, a program that produces cutting-edge films, curriculum guides and training resources to help prevent prejudice among young people. As executive producer, Helen spearheaded the Project’s outreach and teacher-training program, which has been recognized nationally as a model for using film to affect progressive social change. Cohen's producing credits include the first three films in the Respect for All series: It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School (1996), the groundbreaking film for parents and educators that aired on over 100 public television stations nationally; That's a Family! (2000), the inspiring, award-winning film for elementary school kids about family diversity that screened to a packed room of educators and child advocates at the White House in 2000; and Let's Get Real (2003), a powerful documentary about young teens' experiences with name-calling and bullying that has been endorsed by the National Education Association, Teaching Tolerance, and many others. Helen also produced and directed Homes & Hands: Community Land Trusts in Action (1998), which won a CINE Golden Eagle and has been used extensively for training and education to promote progressive community development initiatives.  Helen is a long-standing member of New Day Films, a national cooperative of independent filmmakers who self-distribute social issue documentaries.

Mark Lipman (Producer/Director/Cinematographer/Editor) has worked as a documentary filmmaker for over twenty-five years, exploring a wide range of subjects from domestic violence to human sexuality to affordable housing and community organizing. His films have been broadcast nationally on public television and won numerous awards.  Among his producing and directing credits is Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street which documents the work of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) as it transforms a devastated neighborhood into a national model for community revitalization. The film has had a significant impact on the community development field and was one of ten films profiled by the Ford Foundation in a study of its most effective media funding over the past 25 years. Mark has also produced media for public interest groups throughout New England and has worked as a freelance editor at WGBH and other Boston-area companies. Before moving to California in 2004, he made programs for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum documenting the creation of new artwork by internationally renowned artists-in-residence. Most recently he completed editing work on Alaska Far Away, a feature documentary about a controversial New Deal program that relocated 200 destitute farm families into the wilds of Alaska. He has taught production and editing workshops for young people and adults and completed an MFA in filmmaking at the Massachusetts College of Art in conjunction with the completion of his most recent film, Father's Day. He has been an active member of New Day Films since 1981.