“What’s Eating You?” started as “Addicted to George”, a play written by and starring Leslie Ackerman at the Melrose Theater, Hollywood in 1993. It preceded projects like Sex and the City and Something About Mary, tackling similar women’s issues and contemporary subject matter.

Leslie is an actress who guest starred on prime time tv and feature films, starting in her late teens… continuing for two decades. Leslie imdb.com

After seeing a video of the stage production, Jonathan and Leslie became producing partners and the two set out to turn it into a feature. Lots of meetings followed.

Leslie revamped the screenplay while Jonathan (Director) and Kris Krosskove (Producer) worked on the visual concepts and production requirements.

From there, the film was shown at HDFEST (non competitive) in Chicago. Jonathan took it to studios and the Cannes Film Market— but interested distributors wanted 35mm prints, not the digital HD tapes. There were very few theaters with digital projection and streaming didn’t exist yet. Scanning to film wasn’t affordable.

In April 2001, HDFEST invited the film to it’s first competition at the TV Academy in North Hollywood, where it won Best Feature. But, after that, the tapes were stored in a vault and Jonathan moved on.

So did Leslie. She quit acting, went back to school, got her degrees and has been a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California for the last 16 years. LAckermanLMFT .

She has also been Jonathan’s manager for 24 years.

The film came together through an unusual piece of timing. Much of the crew had worked together for over a decade and a number of key crew members volunteered 21 days of their spring 1998 hiatus to shoot the film under a Screen Actors Guild Low Budget - Experimental/New Media agreement.

A lot of favors were asked from Vendors, Studio Departments and friends. Hiring a casting director and working out of a borrowed studio office, the casting was finished within a couple of weeks.

The project was shot at various locations in Los Angeles, including the Veteran’s Hospital, small shops, Jonathan’s condo, Leslie’s and Kris’s homes.

After Jonathan finished the edit and mix, final post production at Sony Studios’ newly developed HD Center tied the finishing knot on the project by early 2000.