HBO’s ’32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide’ Adds Chilling Directorial Chapter to ‘Ruth’s Dream’
01/07/2018
DVS Project Greenhouse
In 2008, after artist Ruth Litoff tragically took her own life in her Manhattan apartment at age 42, Hope Litoff vowed to explore her sister’s creative brilliance and gain an understanding of Ruth’s struggles with mental illness. She was also determined to complete Ruth’s final project at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, where Ruth had received care through her tribulations.
A new HBO documentary titled, 32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide, takes viewers with Hope to unpack Ruth’s storage unit, capturing the angst, volatility and fragility in her search for answers. After the experience drives Hope into a dark state eerily similar to Ruth’s downward spiral, Hope regains her sobriety and turns her focus toward bringing Ruth’s Dream to the hospital that had showed her sister such compassion and love during her most trying times.
Ruth’s Dream was installed at Bellevue Hospital in 2016, after Hope and independent producer Beth Levison collaborated with Duggal Visual Solutions to bring bright, floral beauty to the space that Ruth had once called “the perfect greenhouse for my flowers.”
