ADRIFT

Director: Tom Curran

Cast: Tom Curran, Jr., Mary Jane Curran, Maeve, Desmond, and Gavin Curran, Bob Libbey

Country: U.S.
Year: 2002
Running Time: 55 min
Format: 35mm

When the four Curran children lost their father, twelve-year-old Tom did not cry. Instead, he vowed to make it as a professional athlete to make his father proud, though that career never materialized. At age 37, Curran finally grieves for his father and examines the effect that his father's death (and attitude in life) has had on him and his siblings.

With interviews with his commercial striped bass fishermen brothers and his championship bodybuilder sister, their father's legacy of competitiveness and blind drive for success is revealed. By confronting these issues, Tom is able to understand that he has been adrift upon his father's expectations and can now plot his own course in life. This insightful first person account of loss in an Irish-American family reveals the myths and legacies that children inherit and are likely to pass on to the next generation.

Presented By: Tom Curran and Tracy Heather Strain

Tom Curran is an Emmy Award-winning cameraman who makes his directing debut with Adrift. Over the past 10 years as a documentary photographer, he has worked for ABC's Wide World of Sports, the Discovery Channel's Discover Magazine, and PBS's Scientific American Frontiers.

Producer Tracy Heather Strain has held a variety of positions in media production over the past 19 years. She served as art department coordinator on Mississippi Masala. She has also produced, directed, and written two programs for the Peabody Award-winning series, I'll Make Me a World: A Century of African-American Arts.