This week, filmmaker Jonathan Bucari headed to Connecticut – and to a town just 20 miles from the scene of December's shooting -- to begin preliminary work on "Illness," a small, independent feature about a mentally disturbed 13-year-old boy whose life becomes more unhinged after the massacre. Bucari told reporters this week he chose Ridgefield because "it has the same look and feel as Newtown."

The reaction to the film has been swift and so far strongly negative. Ridgefield film commissioner Allison Stockel told Newtown Patch.com that she's received "at least 25 calls from angry residents asking about the film" this week, and the town's First Selectman Rudy Marconi's office announced it "would never approve the filming of a movie related to the subject of the Newtown shooting."

Continue Reading...