GENERAL HOSPITAL’s Jason Thompson may be best known for the role of Patrick, but the actor is branching out behind the camera, as well. Thompson is the executive producer of a new documentary that’s currently hitting the festival circuits.
“Victory Over Darkness is a documentary that I produced with a good friend of mine, Donnie Eichar, who produced and directed it,” says Thompson. “It’s been five years from when the cameras first started rolling. It’s a documentary about three blind athletes who made history by competing in an Iron Man triathlon. They have varying degrees of blindness. Heidi started off blind at birth. She’s never seen a single thing. She had to learn how to run in order to compete in the Iron Man because prior to that, she’d always shuffled her feet. Charles is a 62-year-old. He was a middle school teacher for 35 years and no faculty members or students knew he was blind. He faked his way through everything. He was born with macular degeneration. Basically, he was born with the eyes of a 60-year-old and they got progressively worse. Then there’s Dave. A couple days after Christmas, when he was 22, he woke up from a coma two days later and found out that his stepmother had shot him twice in the head. She shot and killed his father and then she overdosed on pills, so he woke up not only dealing with the loss of his family, but was blind. So, Donnie followed around these three amazing humans for four years and it was in post-production for a year.”
Victory Over Darkness premiered in September in Los Angeles, with Thompson’s GH and GH: NIGHT SHIFT co-stars in attendance, including Kimberly McCullough (Robin), Carrie Southworth (Claire), Adam Grimes (Kyle), Ethan Rains (Leo) and Dominic Rains (ex-Leo). Of his new “role,” Thompson says, “It just feels really good to want to get something like this out there. It’s a story that should be told and people should see. It’s heavy at times, but there are simplicities in it that make you sit back and say, ‘Wow!’ It’s incredibly inspiring. The film is a testament not only to the subjects, but to Donnie and the other partner, Matt Miller. They moved heaven and earth to get this film made. I’m honored to be a part of it.”
To see the trailer for Victory Over Darkness, check out http://www.donnieeichar.com/VOD/01.htm.
To read more about C Different, the organization founded by Miller to benefit visually impaired athletes worldwide, check out www.cdifferent.org.
