www.NoWayOutButOne.com
They have reached the funding goal, now the documentary will be completed. WTG Barry Nolan and Garland Waller!
No Way Out But One is a documentary that tells the story of Holly Collins, an American woman who was driven by fear, love and desperation to kidnap her own children and go on the run in order to protect them from a life of abuse. Wanted by the FBI, Holly left behind everything she owned and everyone she knew in an effort to keep her children safe. She became an international fugitive, eventually making it to Amsterdam. After spending 2 years in a refugee camp out in the middle of nowhere, living shoulder to shoulder with other desperate souls fleeing violence torn hell holes around the world, Holly became the first American woman to ever be granted asylum by the Government of the Netherlands, due to domestic violence. Though it focuses on the desperate measures that one woman felt she had to take to protect her children, it also exposes the problems that protective parents and vulnerable children are facing nearly every day in courtrooms across the country.
AND BLIND JUSTICE
After the family had been living quietly in the Netherlands for 14 years, the FBI found them and came calling. By then the children had "aged out" of court supervision and they told the FBI that, in their eyes, their mother was not a kidnapper, but a hero, who had saved their lives. Eventually, all charges against Holly were dropped.
Today, Holly's children all thrive. They are warm and gracious and caring. And Holly and her kids are preparing to return to America.
No Way Out But One follows on the groundbreaking work of producer Garland Waller’s previous award-winning documentary Small Justice. It examined the failure of the Family Court System to protect children from abuse. It is the secret shame of the American Court system and one that is virtually ignored by the mainstream media.
We have produced a 13-minute extended preview of No Way Out But One and are seeking funds to complete the post-production of a full length version that will include additional interviews in Minnesota and material from Holly's FBI files. We have been informed by the FBI that we can expect to receive the files from our FOIA request in the next few weeks.
When completed, besides being a gripping and inspiring tale in and of itself, the film can be used by advocacy groups across the country to educate, to persuade, and to bring attention to the crying need for change in the Child and Family Courts systems.
No Way Out But One is based on extensive interviews with Holly and her family, medical professionals, lawyers, and child advocates. Filming has been completed in The Netherlands, Boston, Washington DC, and New York. The producers have culled through thousands of pages of court and medical records, unpublished journals, news reports, family photos and videos. Our Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI for Holly’s files, resulted in the identification of nearly 1,000 pages of never before seen material.
No Way Out But One tells the story of one woman and her family but it is emblematic of a much larger heartbreaking national scandal. In Child and Family Court systems across the country, those who abuse their children are all too often awarded custody of them by the very courts charged with protecting them.
It is estimated that 58,000 children a year are ordered into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce in the United States.
Holly's case is by no means an isolated example. View some of the interviews producer Garland Waller conducted at the annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference.
As it stands today, the Family Court System is far too often a dysfunctional and dangerous place for children. It is a system desperately in need of change.
