Always Danny

How one Chicago family dealt with the trauma of losing a child.

2024

36 mins

Filmmaker Tomer Keysar's brother was killed in 1998 from a defective crib. Decades later, Keysar reconstructs this harrowing story, and explores the legacy of trauma and enduring grief in his heartbroken family.

Synopsis

This short documentary film, Always Danny, delves into the different ways the filmmaker's family deals (and didn’t deal) with the grief of their son Danny's death. His parents start a non-profit to help fight the juvenile product safety system. They advocate for laws that require manufacturers to test their products before hitting the market.

While the parents try to prevent this from happening to another family, his older brother Ely distances himself from their family. Tomer & Ely talk to each other about Danny's death for the first time in this film. With emotional interviews & gut wrenching home video footage this film is a personal and unfiltered exploration of the legacy of trauma.

Director Commentary

This is the most important film I've ever made. My family's work with children's product safety was very public, but how his death affected — and still affects — my family was never spoken about even within our family. It was an incredible experience to interview my family members — especially my brother Ely. It happened to be that the filming coincided with Ely beginning to consciously understand how Danny's death affected him, as well as my relationship with him. The result is one of the toughest and most rewarding experiences of my life. I am honored to share our story with the world, and hope that it can serve as an example for others who are struggling to talk about grief. Thank you for watching.