“This is the first feature film I’ve directed, so it is the most personally and professionally significant one for me,“ he said.
Mad River, a feature film based on his novel by the same name, was filmed entirely in Ohio, with scenes in Springfield, Urbana, New Carlisle, Medway, Enon, Fairborn, Xenia and Yellow Springs.
According to Robbins, the film is “the story of a lonely man’s descent into insanity. It’s told from the inside out though, so the audience experiences his fracturing mind along with him.”
Robbins knew he had to make this film after a continued encounter with a “troubled homeless man.” He said when he was managing third shift at a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, he spoke regularly with the man who he said was often aggressive with his employees and guests, but calm and kind to him.
“ I listened to him and talked to him like a person. It’s when I realized that, as a society, we label people as “crazy” or “evil” to keep them at arm’s length. Mad River is a deeply empathetic look at a broken man. It’s why I wrote the novel, and it’s why I knew I had to make this film," he said.
Robbins hopes the movie will resonate with people, spark conversations, entertain, and encourage those from small towns to believe in themselves and make their own way.
“I believe that when you make art so deeply personal to you, you risk alienating folks with its specificity. However, I also believe with all my heart that we are a lot more alike than we often realize, so specificity has a way of striking universal chords in all of us,” he said.
“I hope it encourages other small town folks to believe in yourself and make you own way. And I hope that it makes Ohio proud,” Robbins added.
Robbins, who lives in Fairborn, grew up in Enon and graduated from Greenon High School. He attended Wittenberg University, where he studied to be a high school English teacher before withdrawing to pursue acting, writing and filmmaking.
“I wrote a one act play for a creative writing class at Wittenberg. I wanted to be an actor since I was a child, so seeing my writing come to life in that classroom unlocked something in me. I was hooked!,” he said. “I have since written six feature length screenplays, a dozen short films and two novels (Mad River and Truth in Madison).”
After writing, directing and acting in several short local films in Ohio and Indiana, Robbins moved to Hollywood to pursue filmmaking professionally. He lived in Los Angeles for 12 years and Nashville for three years before moving back to Ohio in 2022 to make Mad River.
Making the film, Robbins said he couldn’t have made it without his mom, Sandy Robbins, and Swiss Army Cameraman, Tom Penrose. He said there were times it was only the three of them, but that Derek Gullet has been working on the post production audio for over a year and the movie’s end credits list 100 people that all contributed in some way.
“It regularly brought tears to my eyes to have so many people believe in me and what we were doing,” he said.
Public screens will be held at 7 p.m. April 10 at the Fairborn Phoenix, 6 p.m. April 17 at the State Theatre in Springfield, and at 7 p.m. April 24, 25 and 2 p.m. April 26 at the Esquire Theatre in Cincinnati. Tickets are available on their respective websites.
Mad River will be available on Blue-ray this spring and streaming later this year. The film score (original music that’s written to accompany a film) and soundtrack will be available soon on vinyl records, which Robbins wrote, performed and recorded himself. The soundtrack features several local artists including Ryan Fyffe (Azphalt Dazy and The Ryan Fyffe Project), Annie Nereng and Matt Clarkson Band.
“If you want to see it the way I intended it to be seen though, come see it in the theatre,” Robbins said.
Robbins novels are available on Amazon, most books stores can order them, and Mad River is available at Tesseract Books in Yellow Springs. Some of his short films are on his YouTube Channel at Jarrod Robbins. He also has a feature screenplay in development and one being shopped around.
For more information or to find Robbins’ work, visit https://jarrodrobbins.com.
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