Weho Resident, Filmmaker Makes 'Touchback'

After 18 years, Don Handfield is finally making it in Hollywood. The Weho resident's first feature film, Touchback, is scheduled for theatrical distribution across the country this fall.

The story centers on a middle-aged Ohio farmer who missed his shot at fame and fortune in football after suffering an injury in high school. Feeling failure at age 40, he chooses to end his life, but awakens to find himself back in 1991, just weeks before his injury, and is given the chance to change his life forever.

“I think what people will find appealing is what it has in common with movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and The Blind Side,” said Handfield. “'Touchback shares an emotional and spiritual DNA with some of those films, but is ultimately a completely different experience.”

The longtime screenwriter originally penned the story more than 15 years ago while dealing with divorce.

“I was questioning a few things in my life...while living in Los Angeles, which doesn’t have a lot of community,” Handfield said. “I spent a couple summers in my childhood at my uncle’s farm in Connecticut."

Longing for that "real small town sense of community" Handfield said brought about the genesis—"emotionally and thematically"—for Touchback. The film deals with loss from financial collapse in society, and the value in less material things, he said.

“The past 50 years, we’ve been sold this Madison Avenue dream of what it is to be successful and happy. It usually revolves around a lot of money, nice cars and a big house,” he said. “We’ve been chasing this dream as a society for so long. I feel when the recession hit, people could no longer have those things and we as a nation didn’t know how to deal with it.”

In the 15 years since writing Touchback, Handfield has remarried and become the father of one daughter, with another baby on the way. With his new outlook, he said he hopes his audience will take a look at their own lives and value what is most important.

"What I hope people take away from my movie is that those aren’t the things that make you happy," he said. "Your community, your family and the people around you make you wealthier than material items.”

The cast includes Hollywood icon Kurt Russell (Tombstone, Grindhouse), Brian Presley (Home of the Brave, Borderland), Academy Award nominee Christine Lahti (Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit, Ally McBeal) and Melanie Lynskey (The Informant, Up in the Air). 

“I was blessed I got a great cast,” Handfield said. “An actor is always going to bring something different that you imagine, and that is the beauty of collaboration.”

Through his achievements and setbacks over the past two decades, the optimistic director has always looked back at the previous year as a means of measuring success.

“Success to me is being able to do what you love and get paid enough for it to take care of the people you love,” he said. “I always gauge myself by asking, ‘Did I get better this year?’ If I got better, then to me that’s success.”

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