Touched

Description: A documentary about people who think they've had contact with aliens and the Harvard psychiatrist who believed them. Includes DVD extras. Description: These 'experiencers', as many of them call themselves, bring with them reports of missing time, bodily probing, sperm extraction, impregnation, a strange project to create a hybrid/alien-human race and apocalyptic warnings. According to various studies, the number of people worldwide reporting alien abductions reaches into the hundreds of thousands. As there is no conclusive physical proof, the debate as to whether these stories are true or not could go on forever. Instead, I became more interested in the people-those who have had their lives both torn apart and transformed by this experience. What happens when the unexplained intrudes into our lives, and how lives and relationships respond when credulity is strained to a breaking point? This is a film about the human experience - about longing for connection and fear of separation. When a person is confronted by something that is so powerful, so indescribably outside the realm of everyday life, it forces a reexamination of everything previously taken for granted. The experience redefines every relationship: with one's self, family, and reality itself. Following the lead of those like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell the audience will witness an archetypal 'Hero's Journey.' For the subjects of our film, this experience has resulted in a kind of Holy Grail search for truth. Beneath the sensational aspects of alien abduction, these are real people looking for answers. Touched follows a human quest to solve a mystery - perhaps only to find that the answer is the quest itself. After viewing Touched, you may not be convinced that these people have been visited by 'aliens,' but you will agree something profound has happened to them. And maybe, just maybe, everything they have described is, in fact, completely true.