Stinking Heaven

New Jersey, early 1990s. Jim and Lucy, a married couple with strong caregiving instincts run a rehab clinic in New Jersey, where a motley crew has gathered to take back control after a life of substance abuse. It is a communal life routinely filled with working, cooking, eating and resting. When Ann, the ex-lover of one of the housemates, arrives on the scene, the household collapses into chaos. Creative therapy is abandoned, drugs are reintroduced and paranoia abounds.

Director Nathan Silver (Actor Martinez, Soft in the Head) had his actors improvise in front of the camera without a script. He recorded their performance with a professional video camera of the early 1990s, resulting in grainy and jumpy footage. Silver brilliantly managed to capture the chaos that sets in once the group relapses into their old habits in this sensitive but unsentimental group portrait.