Award-Winning Birmingham Filmmaker Jason O'Brien Announces New Feature Documentary CUDDLE Now Shooting in Five Locations Around the Country

    BIRMINGHAM, AL, November 27, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Over the past few months, award-winning Birmingham filmmaker Jason O'Brien has been in production on a new feature length documentary from his Fast Lane Productions company called Cuddle. It's a film chronicling a revolutionary movement around the country with a group of people trying to clear the misconceptions of others in their quest to bring us closer together and provide services to those to provide the most basic human need of touch.

For years, people have been getting together at cuddle parties, where non-sexual physical touch can be practiced and explored within a safe and innocent setting. In a couple of cities, and most recently, in Madison, Wisconsin, new businesses are opening and facing huge controversy to offer one-on-one snuggling sessions for paying customers ... again, in a completely safe and non-sexual environment. In each of these instances, the misperceptions and misunderstandings of others have caused controversy, and have sometimes made it difficult for people to see the benefits that these services and events can provide, and it ends up dealing so much with how we view touch in America and how the lines have blurred between compassion and sex. Can these movements succeed and allow others to see how finding ways to get back to our most basic human needs could actually be a positive step forward for our society? Or will these movements face too much misunderstanding and founder? This new documentary explores it all.

Jason first began by covering the return of the Cuddle Party movement in Birmingham, Alabama, interviewing facilitators Tracy and Bryan Gilliom, and a first time Cuddle Party attendee, Kate Donnelly, whose insights and anxiety about attending a cuddle party lend an interesting look into this event that has been around for a number of years. Jason then traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, right in the midst of the huge controversy that erupted around the opening of The Snuggle House, a new business offering one-on-one snuggling services. Self made millionaire Matthew David Hurtado explained his desire to open this new business and the struggles he faced in the city from those who thought it was a front for prostitution. Jason then traveled to Boulder, Colorado, where a man named Chris DeCicco was already operating a one-on-one snuggling business called "Be The Love You Are". Jason was granted unprecedented access, filming many one-on-one snuggling sessions and interviews with snugglers and clients. Future travel includes San Francisco to interview a man who founded "Cuddle Therapy" and a woman who helped co-found the Cuddle Party movement almost a decade ago. Jason will wind up his travels with a trip to New York to interview the innovating woman who first started the one-on-one snuggling business when she opened The Snuggery in Rochester, and a woman about to open up her own cuddling business after having coached women who had not been nurtured by their mothers. Shooting will then complete in Birmingham in early January, and the completed film is scheduled for release in Spring 2014.

The film's website is at www.thecuddlemovie.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thecuddlemovie. The first teaser trailer is online at the film's website as well as this direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3COmwTcwda8. A Kickstarter campaign is currently underway to attempt to raise the funds to finish the film at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/164117656/cuddle-a-documentary.

Jason O'Brien is an award-winning local Birmingham filmmaker who has been making films since 2004. His first feature film, Killing Christian (2005), was shot entirely in the Birmingham area and premiered to a local sold out crowd of 450 people. His short film After the Torment (2011) was the official selection in six film festivals over the course of three years, and won two awards, including a 2012 Golden Ace Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival. In addition to Cuddle, he is also in pre-production for a new short film he's producing and co-directing with Janet Robinson called The Other Side of Laughter, based on her recently released novel of the same name.

Contact:
Jason O'Brien
[email protected]
1008 Independence Court, Alabaster, AL 35007
Ph: 205-520-3074
Fast Lane Productions: www.flprods.com

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