LIVING WITH A VISIONARY
Animated short, 2026, 15 minutes
Pencil and Watercolor Crayon on Vellum
Garden Shed Productions/Cartuna

World Premiere:
2026 Sundance Film Festival

West Coast Premiere:
2026 Santa Barbara Film Festival

After 50 years of marriage, John must care for his wife while learning to live alongside her vivid hallucinations. A true story.

Narrated by Academy Award nominee James Cromwell (Babe, L.A Confidential), and based on John Matthias’ memoir first published in The New Yorker, Living with a Visionary is a soulful, bittersweet reflection on John’s fifty-year marriage to Diana, an art curator grappling with Parkinson’s. As Diana’s medication besets her with vivid, often beautiful hallucinations, John, now her caregiver, adapts to her imaginary world. When the Covid-19 pandemic separates them, John is forced to admit he can no longer care for Diana, and struggles to free himself from a psychiatric ward. In John’s final phone conversation with a Covid-positive Diana, he reads her the first poem he ever wrote for her, and is left with the memories of her visions.

Starring: James Cromwell with Katherine LaVictoire
Casting by: Kristi Reed
Music by: Simon Panrucker
Sound Design and Mix by: Nick Gotten
Executive Producers: James Belfer, Adam Belfer, and Stephen P. Neary
Produced by: Stephen P. Neary and Mireia Vilanova
Written and Directed by: Stephen P. Neary

A GARDEN SHED and CARTUNA Production