But the real drama turned out to be Smiley's own story.

"Out of the Shadow" is the award-winning filmmaker's 67-minute documentary about five years in the recent life of her mother, Millie, and Millie's battle with schizophrenia in a disorganized health care system charged with helping her.

Although Smiley rarely disclosed the family secret, she boldly turned the camera inward to capture the truth about schizophrenia, using old family photographs and home movies and interviews with family members that reveal the best and worst of Millie, a fair composite sketch of schizophrenia's two faces.

"It was a way for me to channel my pain and frustration that I thought would be very productive," Smiley said of the film. "When I started researching schizophrenia and saw that one out of 100 people have it, I thought it was crazy that so many people have it but nobody really understands what it is. I thought making this film would help me to better understand my mom's illness and educate others."

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, which began Sunday and ends Saturday, the Lancaster County Affiliate of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill is offering a free screening of "Out of the Shadow" at 6:30 tonight at Church of the Apostles United Church of Christ, 1850 Marietta Ave. Following the film, a panel of mental health experts will address issues raised in the film and answer audience questions.

What people will see is a story that even Smiley's mother hasn't watched from beginning to end -- a portrait of deteriorating mental health riddled at times with rage and profanity, tenderness and confusion.

"She didn't really want to see the whole thing," Smiley said of her mother, who's now living a stable life in a Chicago group home. "I did this with her approval, but there are moments in the film when she's so psychotic she didn't even know the camera was running.

"When we were watching it, it got to some points that she didn't want to see any more. She said, 'I don't like the way my life has turned out. It just depresses me.' I respect that. What has happened in her life is sad."

Still, Smiley and her mother appreciate that the film has been embraced by the mental health community and was chosen as an official selection of the Vancouver International Film Festival and Silverdocs, a documentary film festival sponsored by Discovery Channel and American Film Institute.

Mildred Smiley was a tall beauty with Grace Kelly looks and two young daughters when her paranoid schizophrenia first manifested itself.

On a bad day, she was violent. On a good day, she slept all day but neglected her children.

Family members admit to Smiley's camera they knew the hell in which the girls lived, with beatings in front of neighbors from a mother who regularly told them the CIA and FBI had planted cameras throughout the house to spy on them. But neither neighbors nor family acted on the girls' behalf or even acknowledged there was anything wrong with Millie.

"It truly never occurred to me that you were victims as well," Millie's cousin, Nancy, tells the camera, operated by Smiley.

"Out of the Shadow" is best at portraying how everyone in schizophrenia's wake is a victim, whether it's Millie's daughters or their father, who left the family when Smiley was 4 but still feels guilt for abandoning his daughters.

"This film resonates for anyone who had cared for a loved one who's disabled in any way, whether it's Alzheimer's or retardation," Smiley said. "When you're responsible for a loved one who's severely disabled, it's a massive responsibility, and you're faced with moral dilemmas all the time. I narrate the film and go into my feelings and consciousness of where I was at."

More than anything, Smiley said, she hoped to make a film that would conjure compassion and awareness for those with mental illness.

"You pass a homeless person on the street and you might think twice about them suffering from schizophrenia and hopefully be more proactive about trying to help," Smiley said. "A lot of us who don't understand the illness are simply reactive. We think our mother or our brother is just a jerk who can't pull their lives together.

"There are a lot of myths and perceptions because people don't understand the illness and how it changes people."

To register to attend, call 293-9250 or 871-6205.

"It was a way for me to channel my pain and frustration that I thought would be very productive."