Whidbey
Island
Alisha
"Whidbey Island Alisha" is a retrospective documentary feature film about schizophrenia based on Whidbey Island, Washington.
Documentary Logline:
After breaking into her childhood home, Alisha Summers, 71, spent six weeks in police custody before she was forcibly institutionalized in Oregon. Alisha’s life as an artist was obscured by late-onset schizophrenia, an illness that distorted her reality and divided her family until she died nine months after her arrest.
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Our Goal:
Humanizing Schizophrenia
Our film hopes to take viewers on a powerful journey profiling the life of Alisha Summers. Through sharing Alisha's story, we hope to work toward a greater collective understanding of schizophrenia and humanize the transformation many undergo as a result of the illness. Alisha Summers' niece, Rose Lee, developed the concept for "Whidbey Island Alisha" after Summers' tragic passing in 2022.
Alisha Summers, formerly Elizabeth Lee, moved to Whidbey Island, Washington, in the 1980s to explore her individuality and harness her dreams of creative expression through performance art. Following a decade of blissful self-actualization on Whidbey, Alisha develops symptoms of schizophrenia following an unexpected period of psychosis in the mid-1990s.
After developing schizophrenia, Alisha continued to exist in the community of Langley, WA, a quaint village on Whidbey Island's southeast end, for nearly three decades while living in the throes of her mental illness. Many years later, in the spring of 2021, Summers was arrested and incarcerated in Portland, OR. She was then transferred to Oregon State Hospital, a state mental health institution (where One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was filmed) in Salem, OR. Tragically, Summers passed away nine months after her arrest.
"Whidbey Island Alisha" will span the last 40 years of Alisha's life and explore the perspective of someone who battled intrusive hallucinations and debilitating delusions while living alone on the picturesque Whidbey Island.
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