The Seattle Public Library created a program 14 years ago that has since been emulated world-wide. On a cloudless Saturday morning in early May, Amy Waldman, the author of this year’s program selection Seattle Reads The Submission, told the Ballard Branch Library audience why she had to write the book. As a New York Times reporter covering the September 11, 2001 attacks she would go home at night experiencing the worst grief she had ever felt in her life.

The Submission, her first novel, was the book she needed to write in order to find a place to put her grief after interviewing family members of the dead. I have returned to Waldman’s remarks repeatedly over the last weeks; especially when I sat across from Blair Brooke-Weiss and her husband Craig. A year ago her 21 year-old son Justin Amorratanasuchad died accidentally from a fall while in his junior year as a film-production major at Emerson University in Boston.

Where does a mother put her grief? For Brooke-Weiss the answer has become, into creating a scholarship that will provide a portable scholarship for film students like her incredibly talented youngest son Justin.

Justin Amorratanasuchad was creating and directing videos as early as elementary school. Even before the slew of awards won for films made as part of the Ballard High School Video Production Program his first video succeeded in its goal. Justin wanted Marley Skate Shop to sponsor him as a skateboarder. He did the stunts while directing his friends on how to get the shot. He got the sponsorship.

Justin attended Ballard High School for its video program and later applied to a number of prestigious film schools. By then he had won awards every single year that he participated in the Northwest High School Film Festival, at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth and the 32nd Annual Young People’s Film & Video Festival. Accepted into several programs he chose Emerson University in downtown Boston. The talent that had so impressed teacher Matt Lawrence at Ballard quickly transferred to his Emerson professors. Justin was always a star.

If there is every any meager comfort when someone dies doing what they loved best it is that Justin died while filming on a rooftop in Boston in April. The class assignment was to capture morning. The footage began with a friend fixing coffee and then followed him to the rooftop, Boston’s morning skyline in the distance.

After the outpouring of support from friends and family, a memorial including a video “confession booth” for Justin’s devastated friends to record their memories, Justin’s mother Blair struggled to find her way back to work, caught in what she still calls “a cloud of grief.” Each family member was mourning their own relationship and loss; Justin’s older brother Jesse, his stepfather and stepbrother Craig Brooke-Weiss and Levi Carbonell-Weiss.

Even in the early worst days it came to Brooke-Weiss that she wanted to create a scholarship in honor of Justin’s love for film and the support he had received at a public high school. She first thought to create a scholarship through Ballard High School but realized the scope and reach needed to be greater. Her friend Mary Mullen co-founded the fund that subsequently created a scholarship for public school students throughout the state. Unlike a scholarship offered by a school it would be “portable” with the student to the film program of their choice.

The anniversary of Justin’s death was on April 17, 2012.The first scholarship was awarded a month later at the Northwest High School Film Festival to Center School student Sophie Mitchell. Sophie learned along with the audience in attendance at the awards presented at Cinerama that she was the first recipient. She will be studying film next year at Bournemouth University in England.

“They’re so courageous for what they’ve done, trying to make something good out of their tragedy,” Sophie said later. Like Justin she has known she wanted to make films as long as she can remember.

Brooke-Weiss would never have gotten into the world of fundraising before her son’s death. Now it helps her place her grief knowing that every dollar raised by screenings, donor appeals, whatever else she can do to raise money will go to a student as driven as Justin to get the perfect shot. She wants more students to apply every year, even though choosing from 12 applicants this year was very hard, “It’s ripping our hearts to choose just one.”

The Alliance for Education is the scholarship’s funding partner; in order to launch an endowment the family needs to raise a minimum of $100,000. Ultimately Brooke-Weiss’ goal is to be able to fund multiple students for their undergraduate years, at $20,000/year. The application process calls for teacher recommendation, work examples, essay, demonstrated financial need and acceptance into a film program.
To date the Justin Amorratanasuchad Film Scholarship Fund has raised $26,820.

Justin’s first and last completed works were of skateboarding. “He was a risk taker,” his mother said, “But he was also careful. He died because of one misstep.” Blair Brooke-Weiss managed to not only get through the first year since Justin’s death, but also to start the scholarship to help other young filmmakers from the Northwest. She draws strength from seeing the works of other talents but returns to work in which Justin is sometimes on-screen. “I love seeing him” she says simply, although not without grief.

When author Waldman started her novel it was to help herself; little could she dream The Submission would be considered for every major literary prize, named one of NPR’s Ten Best Novels or read by thousands of Seattlites at the same time. Likewise who knows what could become of Brooke-Weiss’ scholarship in honor of her late son, one reader, one donor, at a time.

For more information on Justin’s life and his films or to make a donation, go to the website (based on his nickname) www.jdoggfilmscholarship.org. There is also information about contributing by check, and scholarships for 2013.