Award-winning Carbondale filmmaker Ashley Mosher said the title of her 40-minute documentary film, “Goodboy,” blends the words “goodbye” and “good boy.” It’s a true-life story of the cross-country journey of Mosher, her husband, Mark Millhone, and their 15-year-old chocolate Labrador, Kenya, who was diagnosed with bone cancer before they moved from Portland, Oregon, to rural Vermont.

The screening on Jan. 20 at the Crystal Theatre in Carbondale at 4:30pm is a fundraiser for a local nonprofit, Colorado Animal Rescue (C.A.R.E.). Because the Jan. 20 showing is already sold out, the film will screen again on Jan. 27 at the same time and place. 

Wes Boyd, executive director of C.A.R.E., said, “We are thrilled to partner with Ashley and present ‘Goodboy’’ as a fundraiser for our shelter pets. Thanks to past success hosting the now-retired Bow Wow Filmfest at the Crystal Theatre, we knew this special film would touch the hearts of many in our community.”

Mosher moved to the Roaring Fork Valley in 2004 after earning a degree in sports psychology from the University of Minnesota. After about five years of consulting, she and a friend founded the nonprofit organization Feed Them With Music (FTWM), which brought musicians and music fans together to raise money for meal programs in Haiti and other impoverished countries.

Through FTWM, she worked with high-profile musicians, including Michael Franti, Gavin DeGraw, David Wilcox and others, to create intimate music videos, incorporating backstage footage and interviews, for artists to share with their fans to raise funds for FTWM’s mission.

In 2013, she moved to Los Angeles to learn narrative storytelling. During that time, she realized filmmaking was her calling. It was also where she met her husband, a fellow filmmaker and the dean of a filmmaking school.

“Within a year or two, I realized documentary storytelling aligned more with my values, beliefs and activist heart,” Mosher explained.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, she worked on a film project about immigrants but observed something more urgent.

“Everyone seemed so deeply terrified, particularly of getting sick and dying. I thought that was a fascinating highlight of our humanness. I hadn’t thought about how much we fear death and dying and being close to death and being sick,” Mosher shared.

Mosher and Millhone decided to move to Vermont to be closer to his children, but a profound shift occurred when Kenya was diagnosed with bone cancer. With Kenya’s fate in the balance, Mosher reflected on her experiences with loss and death and “I eventually turned the camera on us and Kenya to document the process,” she said.

Through the declining health of her trusted canine companion, Mosher found herself noticing parallels between the passing of her father, who was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was 15-years-old and died when she was 17.

“Goodboy” delves into how the stories we tell ourselves about our past shape our choices in the present. “How I dealt with my dad’s passing informed how I was dealing with Kenya’s passing. I was fighting that reality and doing everything I could to keep it from happening again. Ultimately, the lesson I learned was that you can’t,” Mosher shared.

Pet ownership is common, and pet loss is inevitable. According to a 2020 study conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, 63% of pet-owning children will experience the death of a pet before their seventh birthday.

When asked if the film is appropriate for children, Mosher suggests parents watch the movie trailer to decide, adding, “It’s a great platform for parents to talk with their children about death and dying, which we often avoid and tuck away. I believe in exposing them to it and letting them know it’s an important part of life,” she explained.

Kenya played a pivotal role in reshaping Mosher’s beliefs about loss. “I had a choice to either celebrate that or be completely broken by it. Kenya helped me realize that embracing it was a better path. This story is the culmination of what I learned by turning towards it instead of away from it,” she explained.

“Love comes with grief — they live side by side. It’s bittersweet because we’re grateful for the time that we had together, and then there’s the grief of not having them with us any longer, and it all exists at the same time. And, that’s life,” Mosher said.

A post-screening Q&A session on Jan. 20 will include Mosher, Boyd, Robyn Hubbard, a grief and loss counselor from Pathfinders Aspen and a local veterinarian. At least some of these same faces will be back for the Jan. 27 screening. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at www.coloradoanimalrescue.org