I & Me (2025)

In order to “heal” Sam must embrace her inner Me and kill her I.

10 min Narrative Short

Writer/Director: Elizabeth Chatelain

Producers: Jon Steinhorst, Vera Bianchini

Cinematography: Kyle Moe

SCREENINGS

Coming Soon…

about this film

In 1998, my elder sister, Sarah, was sent away from our family home to a “therapeutic boarding school” called Rocky Mountain Academy (“RMA”) in Idaho. It was one of a number of the CEDU schools that claimed to use holistic treatment and education to create the ideal learning environment for “troubled teens.” Sarah returned in deep despair, much worse than before she left for RMA, and began using drugs to cope. Years later, I learned that RMA was the cause of her downward spiral. It prompted me to learn more about RMA and the CEDU schools, and what I discovered shook me to the core. Unbeknownst to my parents, CEDU is an offshoot of the Synanon cult formed in California in the 1960s, that utilized practices ranging from intense physical labor to abusive psychological exercises. For over three decades, the CEDU schools and their offshoots have left a trail of traumatized children, and they still do to this day. Upon this revelation, I have made it my responsibility to tell Sarah’s story, and the stories of the trauma these schools have inflicted on countless children and teenagers.

CAST

Sofia Salmela (Sam)

Daylen Moore (The Voice)