Positive Reinforcement

When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women, Maddie Schwartz and Cleo Sherwood, converge on a fatal collision course.

Confronted with trauma, women contain, compartmentalize, distract, and ultimately carry on— lessons learned from a society of partially blind eyes. Shannon is a mother enraptured with invisible pain. She endures in chaotic calm, cracking from the inside out. Exploring the definition of motherhood and female madness, we ask: is reckoning with female pain more dangerous than playing pretend?