By Shayna Cartledge
Welcome to NYWIFT, Christine Oliva-Castillo!
Christine Oliva-Castillo is a licensed clinician and award-winning screenwriter with over two decades of experience in substance abuse disorder treatment and public health. Drawing on lived experience and clinical expertise, she writes stories that challenge how we see addiction, recovery, and the systems people navigate to survive both.
Her feature screenplay Worthy has earned recognition at the Toronto Female Film Festival, Love Wins Film Festival, Page Turner Awards, LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival, and the Script Hall of Fame, among others.
She is currently producing YTHROW, a short film set over one night in a county jail holding cell — a story of hope that honestly confronts the barriers standing between people and the care they deserve.
Could you give our readers a brief introduction to yourself?
I’m a licensed clinician and award-winning screenwriter with over two decades of experience in substance abuse disorder treatment and public health. I’m currently producing YTHROW: also known as Worthy the Short – a short film set over one night in a county jail holding cell.
What brought you to NYWIFT?
I came to NYWIFT because I needed a community of women who understand what it means to build something from the ground up. The intersection of storytelling and advocacy can be a lonely place. NYWIFT felt like the right room to be in.
What led you to become so passionately committed to helping and advocating for those suffering with substance abuse and mental health disorders?
Lived experience. I’ve sat on both sides of the clinical relationship in substance abuse disorder treatment, and that shapes everything I do. The work stopped being abstract a long time ago.
How do you use storytelling to further spread awareness surrounding addiction?
I write characters, not cases. The moment an audience stops seeing a label and starts seeing a person, something shifts. That shift is the whole point.
What is a common misconception about substance abuse and mental health disorders? How does your work and storytelling help change this narrative?
That treatment is equally accessible to everyone who needs it. It isn’t. Barriers to getting into care and staying in it are real and often invisible to people outside the system. Storytelling closes that gap. You can argue with a statistic. You can’t argue with someone’s face.
Tell us about a project you’ve created that was the most rewarding/fulfilling.
YTHROW. It’s the first time I’ve put everything I know and everything I’ve lived into one piece of work. Watching women on screen hold each other up in a place designed to break them down, that’s the story I was meant to tell.
What overall impact do you hope to have?
I want YTHROW to start conversations that change how we treat people in crisis. I want it in the hands of clinicians, corrections staff, and educators who are ready to reimagine what compassionate, effective care looks like. And I want it to open the door to Worthy — a feature that takes that conversation even further.
Connect with Christine Oliva-Castillo on her website jointheworthy.com, on LinkedIn, or Facebook.
(All photos courtesy of Christine Oliva-Castillo)
Shayna Cartledge
Shayna Cartledge is a NYWIFT intern from Prince George’s County, Maryland. She graduated from the illustrious HBCU Clark Atlanta University as Valedictorian with a major in Mass Media Arts with a concentration in Radio/TV/Film and a minor in Business Administration. Her directorial debut, CLOSURE: THE THINGS I WISH I COULD SAY, picked up distribution with streaming platform Tubi in collaboration with HBCU First Look. As an independent filmmaker, Shayna’s goal is to create spaces in which Black people can shape their own narrative. She wants to help dismantle the stereotypes and trauma that the media tries to define as Black identity and highlight the beautiful parts that are not always shown.
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