Slamdance Film Festival 2009

Immersed in the dingy world of low-income housing and diagnosed at age 11 with Coprolalia Tourette’s Syndrome, Sonny Johns cries out to a world that has left him by the wayside. Using money saved from years of government disability, he takes part in an experimental surgery promising to rid him of his violent outbursts. With his symptoms eradicated, Sonny feels he is finally experiencing life for the first time. But as his disorder begins to vanish so too does a divine ability of which only he and his sister Meryl are aware; an ability that saved his sister's life and upon which Sonny may need to call again.

Violent, sad, funny, audacious - Son of The Sunshine is all those. The film jumps into a harsh world that is as beautiful as it is ugly, as ordinary as it is magical - a world that has its own logic and its own mysteries. And at the core of the film is a no holds barred performance by writer/director Ryan Ward that is the heart and soul of the film.

- Nicole Arbusto, Film Programmer