Alumna’s film scheduled for Madison showing

“Side Effects,” an independent film written, directed and produced by UW–Madison alumna Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, is returning to Madison for a Friday, Dec. 9-Sunday, Dec. 11, premiere at the Marcus Westgate Art Cinemas.

Tickets for its screening at the 2005 Wisconsin Film Festival sold out in just 24 hours, and in recent months the film has attracted audiences in major markets around the country, including Boston and Dallas.

“Side Effects” was filmed in and around the Madison area in the summer of 2004. The Lakeshore Path behind Memorial Union and the UW Arboretum are among the locations moviegoers may recognize.

Most of the cast and crew came from Madison and Milwaukee. The main character is played by Katherine Heigl, a cast member on the ABC TV series “Grey’s Anatomy.”

“We are so thrilled to bring ‘Side Effects’ home for the holidays,” says Slattery-Moshkau, who earned a bachelor of arts degree in political science from UW–Madison in 1991. She spent 10 years as a sales representative for a major drug company and says it was that experience that formed the basis for her film.

“As a drug rep, almost daily I experienced the comical marketing tactics of the industry, as well as the dangerous pursuit of profits that can, and have, come at the expense of patients’ lives,” she says.

“I chose to do this film as a story instead of a documentary, because I thought I could reach a wider audience that way. I felt that through fiction, I could get people to laugh, be shocked and get educated at the same time.”

Slattery-Moschkau has shown her film to UW–Madison pharmacy and medical students and discussed her experiences in the pharmaceutical industry with them.

Holly Mosher, the film’s Hollywood producer, says that “Side Effects” is being embraced by the medical community, including the World Health Organization and Health Action International.