Sweet Mystery of Life

In Progress

In a dreamlike 1950s town square built inside a warehouse, the team behind the Oscar-shortlisted PROCESSION collaborates with four participants with Alzheimer’s or dementia to investigate our memory care crisis and explore the healing potential of filmmaking.

SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE follows these participants as they engage with the memory village, work with the memory care workers and struggle with the disease in other aspects of their lives. As a way to more deeply understand dementia and what Town Square creator Scott Tarde calls Immersive Reminiscence Therapy, we transform the strange, magical space into a film set and collaborate with our four participants (working closely with their families) to make haunting-yet-uplifting short films about their most lasting memories.

Working with us filmmakers engages the participants in a stimulating creative process that upends negative stereotypes about what it means to live with this brutal disease. We will use the power of nostalgia to craft a uniquely cinematic form of Reminiscence Therapy and show the short films we make to the families on the big screen of the movie theater located inside Town Square. They may not remember making the films, but their memories will be given new life as red-carpet movie premieres.

The Filmmakers

Robert Greene’s latest film, TOO MUCH SUGAR, will premiere at the 2026 Venice Film Festival. Robert directed PROCESSION (Telluride 2021), which is distributed by Netflix, was nominated for an Emmy, an Independent Spirit Award, a Peabody, and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. He produced and edited both PAVEMENTS (Venice 2024, NYFF 2024) and THE FEATHERWEIGHT (Venice 2023). Robert’s film BISBEE ’17 (2018) premiered at Sundance, aired on PBS’s P.O.V. and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards. Other films include the Sundance award winning KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (2016), the Gotham Awards nominated ACTRESS (2014) and the Gotham Awards nominated KATI WITH AN I (2010).

Robert produced the film soundtrack for PAVEMENTS, working closely with the band Pavement. For the 2026 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, he was invited to curate the thematic sidebar program. Robert was an inaugural Sundance Art of Nonfiction fellow in 2015. He has edited nearly twenty feature films, including HER SMELL (2018), GOLDEN EXITS (2017), QUEEN OF EARTH (2015) and LISTEN UP PHILIP (2014) by Alex Ross Perry, Nick Berardini’s KILLING THEM SAFELY (2015), Amanda Rose Wilder’s award winning APPROACHING THE ELEPHANT (2014) and Charles Poekel’s Spirit Awards-nominated CHRISTMAS, AGAIN (2015). Robert has served as a Sundance Edit Lab Advisor and was on the U.S. Documentary Jury for Sundance 2017. He co-created the Murray Center for Documentary Journalism, where he currently serves as Filmmaker-in-chief. Robert writes about documentary for outlets such as Sight & Sound and Hyperallergic and he co-programs the Based on a True Story Conference, which runs annually in conjunction with True/False.

Susan Bedusa is an award-winning documentary producer. For more than two decades she has helped lead 4th Row Films with filmmaker Douglas Tirola, building an independent production company behind an acclaimed slate of documentary films and series, including eight films directed by Robert Greene.

Susan’s collaborations with Greene include PROCESSION, which premiered at Telluride, was acquired by Netflix, shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and nominated for Independent Spirit, Peabody and Emmy Awards; BISBEE ’17 (Sundance, POV), for which Bedusa received Cinema Eye Honors nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Production and Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking; the Sundance award-winning KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE; Gotham Award-nominated ACTRESS; and KATI WITH AN I.

Her collaborations with Tirola as director include BERNSTEIN’S WALL, which premiered at Tribeca and Telluride, won multiple festival awards and has received widespread critical acclaim during its current theatrical release; DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: THE STORY OF THE NATIONAL LAMPOON, which premiered at Sundance and was released theatrically by Magnolia Pictures before airing on Showtime; and the James Beard Award-nominated HEY BARTENDER, which has become an enduring portrait of the modern craft-cocktail movement. Their work together has also expanded into premium documentary series, including LET’S DANCE, a three-part series for Paramount+, and NEW WAVE, a four-part series for MGM+/Amazon.

Susan’s connection to independent film began while growing up working and watching movies at her parents’ arthouse theater, SoNo Cinema, in Connecticut. She is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Bennett Elliott is an Emmy award-winning, Peabody award-nominated producer based in New York. She is the producer and co-director of COUPLES THERAPY (Showtime, Seasons 4 & 5), the associate producer of HBO’s PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF (2025), and the producer of Robert Kolodny’s THE FEATHERWEIGHT (Venice Film Festival 2023), Robert Greene’s TOO MUCH SUGAR (Venice Film Festival 2026), PROCESSION (Netflix, 94th Academy Awards Short List), Kim Snyder’s US KIDS (Sundance 2020), Abel Ferrara’s SPORTIN’ LIFE (Venice Film Festival 2020) and Robert Greene’s Gotham Awards-nominated BISBEE ’17 (Sundance 2018). Bennett was the co-producer of Greene’s multiple award-winning Sundance documentary KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (2016). She was selected as a Berlinale Talent (2025), a 2017-2018 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Fellow, a DOC NYC “40 Under 40” fellow, and has produced documentary films for David Byrne, Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman and Nan Goldin.

Bennett has coordinated television series for Bravo, the Food Network and Sundance Channel. In 2015 she was named Head of Production at Mustache, a Brooklyn-based creative agency and produced hundreds of video campaigns for clients including American Express, Chevy, Ford, Conde Nast and the Netherlands Board of Tourism. Her award-winning documentary, fiction film and music video work as producer and co-founder at the production collective House of Nod has taken her all over the world.

Douglas Tirola is an award-winning director and producer whose documentaries have been distributed around the world and have premiered at some of the most prestigious film festivals including Sundance, Telluride, CPH:DOX, HotDocs, Full Frame, Berlin, Tribeca, and SXSW.

Douglas just directed a four-part documentary series for MGM+/Amazon, NEW WAVE, about the music movement that brought alternative culture into the mainstream. It premieres November 22. His film BERNSTEIN’S WALL about legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein premiered at Telluride Film Festival and opened at Film Forum this spring. His previous directing credits include BLOODROOT (DOC NYC, Grasshopper Film), DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD (New York Times Critic’s Pick, Magnolia Pictures, A&E Indie Film), James Beard Award nominated HEY BARTENDER (Netflix), and Grand Jury Award Winning ALL IN – THE POKER MOVIE (Showtime). His first documentary as a director, AN OMAR BROADWAY FILM, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where it was acquired by Sheila Nevins and Nancy Abraham on behalf of HBO.

Douglas has produced more than 20 films, including 8 with Robert Greene. Their collaborations include PROCESSION (Netflix) which was shortlisted for the 2022 Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature, BISBEE ’17 (Sundance, New York Times “Ten Best Films of 2018”, POV), KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (Sundance Award Winner) and Gotham Award nominated ACTRESS. He also produced Crayton Robey’s MAKING THE BOYS (New York Times Critic’s Pick, Berlin, Tribeca) about the play and film “The Boys in the Band.”

Douglas has also worked as a screenwriter for Paramount, Universal, Fox, Warner Brothers, Sony and New Line. Earlier in his career, he worked on films with directors Robert Benton and Mike Nichols. His first job in the film business was as a production assistant on the movie WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. He is the president of 4th Row Films and is represented by William Morris Endeavor.