On Thursday or Friday of this week, your employer might say something like this. It might not be these exact words and your name might not be Johnson, but this could happen:

“Hey, you! Johnson! Get back to work! What in Sam hell are you doing? I was supposed to have the report on the Johnson (no relation) account three hours ago. Why do you have three computer monitors on your desk? And why are all of those screens playing different basketball games? And why do you have those highlighted bracket things all over the walls? And is that a keg of beer on ice in the corner of your office? You trying to get fired or something?”

Until three months ago, Shepherd’s House resident Rick Engle, a gray-bearded 55-year-old man of Irish and Mexican descent, was spending “every dime” on alcohol and each night hopping from one friend’s couch to the next.

Finding work in the construction industry was getting harder and harder, and he knew he was getting closer to living on the cold streets of wintertime Bend. Then, one night, he chose Shepherd’s House instead of alcohol and is now on the road to winning a war with his addiction.

Panic attacks, psych wards, medications and mental illness are usually the stuff of deep, dark family secrets. But in his film-writing debut, Bend local, Derek Sitter, shines a light on these themes as he tells the story of a man’s struggle with bipolar disorder and the would-be cures offered by the pharmaceutical industry.

Sitter, whose life has been rent by his own anxiety and depression, drew on his experiences to forge the scenes in Second Sleep, Sitter’s short film, which chronicles a night in the life of Seth Leer, a middle-aged man who volunteers for drug research in exchange for cash. The still-in-production short film is a test balloon for a bigger project and Sitter’s goal is “to gain momentum in the festival circuit to make a feature-length film."

Sitting in Central Oregon Community College’s Hitchcock Auditorium last Thursday night with a bevy of independent film fans watching Chaz (formerly Chastity) Bono get his breasts removed on the big screen, I was struck by the idea that BendFilm is alive, well and active even though this year’s festival is nearly nine months away.

Thanks to BendFilm’s new documentary film series, fans of quality indie cinema won’t be out in the cold this winter. Between January and April, BendFilm is hosting four documentary film screenings, each takes on a different topic. The films are showing at either COCC’s Hitchcock Auditorium, Sisters Movie House or the Tower Theatre.

In addition to the films, BendFilm has arranged for filmmakers to attend the events. In some cases, filmmakers will join the discussion via Skype, allowing filmgoers to interact directly with the filmmakers, one of the highlights of the annual fall festival. With movies like Becoming Chaz, BendFilm hopes to create a local dialogue about a variety of issues.

When the seminal fly fishing adventure film Trout Bums Volume 1: Patagonia was released in 2007, Thad Robison was working at a software development company creating travel applications for the airline industry. Like other fishing addicts who marveled at the fly fishing exploits of the merry band of vagabond anglers, Robison felt a pull. Unlike other anglers, though, Robison answered the call by contacting the original members of the Angling Exploration Group (AEG) that produced the film. What began as an agreement to screen the film in trout-hungry Salt Lake City quickly turned into a career.

Within a matter of months, Robison quit his corporate job and effectively joined AEG. He sold stock in a Brazilian airline to help finance the inaugural Fly Fishing Film Tour, which was anchored by AEG’s Trout Bum Diaries film and covered half a dozen cities, including Bend.