Our Friend Jon

I just watched this movie at The Widescreen Film Festival in Las Vegas where it won best documentary. A very emotional and awe inspiring story about a group of friends with special needs who make a movie written by their friend who passed away from Sickle Cell Anemia. It's an emotional roller coaster that's best when viewed with a close friend. I hope a major studio buys this so I can see it again.

This film was so amazing and touching. I love to see such strength and kindness in people. I was lucky enough to be part of a small Art/Film/Music Festival as a musician and I felt like seeing that before we played really touched us. I can honestly say I will be watching this movie more than a few more times!!

This movie put me through all the emotions! Happy, sad, laughter, scared. Make sure you have your tissues! You can do anything you put your mind to, and these guys sure did it! They got to honor their friend, while finding themselves in the process! Now I want to make a movie!!! Thanks for the inspiration!

Very heart warming and touching documentary. One of the best documentaries out there. Hands down. Very emotional, motivational and beautifully made. I laughed, I cried, I cheered. Never in million years I felt very emotional watching a documentary. Well done and congrats to director Edward Payson. This is a masterpiece everyone needs to see. Check it out when it becomes available.

I'm an actor and I've been in an Edward Payson film. Not this one. A horror film. That's what Edward Payson is known for: making horror films.

Which makes "Our Friend Jon" all the more striking.

A blessing to the parched soul (and I say that with no hyperbole,) "Our Friend Jon" cannot help but be spiritual refreshment to anyone who sees it and really settles in with the story; with Garrett, with Brandon, with Nick, with the moms, with the friends.

With Jon.

The film is moving in some weird, quiet way. I struggled for a word to describe the sensation, and finding none, created one: humanness. There's no attempt here to manipulate emotion or to make anyone a hero or (despite circumstances) a victim. There's just friendship. Friendship as it actually exists in the private lives we all actually live. It's like being in someone else's home and finding that it is somehow your home, too.

Watch Our Friend Jon. It validates the quiet nobility of our messy, ordinary lives. It makes you long for what is lost, and remember that there is always a future. You'll want to hug somebody. And not a red-carpet hug either. The real kind.

This doc will last.