Bethel resident Shane Reinert, pictured, is raising funds to complete his documentary series on addiction recovery.
By Megan Alley
Sun staff

A Bethel filmmaker is raising funds to complete his documentary series on addiction recovery.

Through the series, Shane Reinert hopes to highlight individuals who have overcome substance addiction.

“I think [addiction] could happen to anyone,” Reinert said. “With this documentary series, I’m trying to show that addicts aren’t just throw-away people; everybody matters.”

Reinert hopes to raise $3,000 for the series; he started a Kickstarter campaign on Feb. 4 to support his fundraising efforts.

Reinert studied videography at the Ohio Media School in Cincinnati, and he is the sole employee at Anderson Community Television in Anderson Township.

He made four documentaries about Clermont County, three of which focus on ghost stories and one which focuses on the Underground Railroad.

Reinert got his idea for the series on addiction recovery while he was watching the news.

“Everyone was doing stories on heroin, but no one was telling any stories about recovery,” he said. “They were just covering death and overdoses.”

He researched some newspaper stories and reached out to John Kues, a recovering addict who was quoted in one of the articles.

Kues, a resident of northern Kentucky, has been heroin-free for four years.

He became addicted to heroin in high school, and despite his addiction, graduated third in his class, according to Reinert.

“[Kues] was very receptive to the project,” Reinert said. “He really wanted to do anything he could to help someone else get off heroin.”

Reinert filmed his interview with Kues about two weeks ago.

“The footage is shot with a first-person narrative,” Reinert said. “I didn’t want to make it too elaborate because I didn’t want to take away from the story.”

Reinert edited the footage in 48 hours; the segment is a sample of the series.

“I was not expecting it to go that quickly,” he said.

Currently, Reinert is in the pre-interview process with potential subjects for the series.

“It’s a bit of a process,” he said. “It’s one thing to approach people, but it’s another thing to get them on camera and to start talking.”

Reinert plans to get as many people on-camera as possible.

“I’m going to keep going until I run out of people to interview,” he added.

Reinert hasn’t set a deadline to complete the project; he expects it to take between six months and a year.

He plans to air the series on Anderson Community Television and YouTube.

“This is a very different topic for me,” he said. “I wanted to tackle something a little more serious, and it just seems like it’s so easy to fall into addiction; something can become a habit so quickly.”

To view Reinert’s interview with Kues, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJNR43DmYrU. To make a contribution to Reinert’s Kickstarter campaign, visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/1261912712/addiction?ref=city.