She was concerned and distraught and she had lost all faith in their abilities. We had a heart-to-heart and made a solemn promise to work together to start to heal. It was a long process, but that's sort of where it turned around.

Some events are imagined or made up, but all of that stuff really happened. The heart of the film is real life.

I was neglected and dehydrated. Other people were tied up, emotionally and physically abused. The staff was completely untrained to deal with troubled teens.

It's amazing. I was 17, and even though I looked like an adult, there was a total lack of rights. Legally, they could kidnap me and take me to a remote island without my consent.

They promote it as a kind of utopia for teens. They show you pictures of teens singing around a campfire and frolicking under waterfalls. But in reality, there was abuse.

I like very radical character art. I'm fascinated with the process of change from one extreme to another and capturing it in a way that is so gradual the audience doesn't realize it until later. That's the ultimate challenge.