Documentary recounts story of Sunland Hospital
WELCOME TO SUNLAND: Tallahassee's Hospital of Horrors from Mike Kozlenko on Vimeo.
Mike Kozlenko, Special to the Democrat
If you had complete creative freedom to tell any story you wanted, no holds barred, which kind would you gravitate toward?
As four Florida State University Digital Media Production students, we knew we wanted to tell the story of something spooky and bizarre — a tale in the realm of urban legends and folklore. At our first meeting, I mentioned an old abandoned hospital in Tallahassee, which was known to treat people with mental and physical disabilities in the late '60s to early '70s. After a few Google searches, we found out that this place was called Sunland Hospital. When we saw what Sunland looked like in its final days, we knew immediately that we had our topic for the project.
TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
Sunland: From hospital to haunted hangoutOur next breakthrough came from our online research when we discovered Terror of Tallahassee. Terror of Tallahassee is a local haunted house, which coincidentally features an exhibit about Sunland. We contacted the owner, Kurt Kuersteiner, and asked if he would offer a more detailed description of the hospital's past. He was more than willing to be interviewed and ended up being a reservoir of knowledge for our documentary.
"The most haunted thing growing up in Tallahassee for me or anybody in my generation – even the generations afterwards – was Sunland."
Kurt Kuersteiner
We researched more about the hospital through FSU's Special Collections Library and the State Archives of Florida. The more material we gathered, the more we were pulled into its story. We would never have expected a place with such a complex and distressing history, one that existed just miles away from our own campus. We took several trips to the State Archives, continued with even more online research, read dozens of articles and viewed hundreds of photos on the patients of Sunland. We started narrowing down our story quickly.We had some great material from Kurt but needed another source to give life to Sunland from another angle. Luckily, one of my friends knew a young woman, Tori Case, who actually visited Sunland before its demolition in 2006. We knew that her experiences visiting Sunland in its abandoned state would be pivotal to our narrative — especially in exploring its unique folklore that has endured over multiple generations.
Mike Kozlenko, Rona Akbari, Evan Garcia and Christopher
Mike Kozlenko, Rona Akbari, Evan Garcia and Christopher Sintic worked on the "Welcome to Sunland" documentary. Here they interview Kurt Kuersteiner, owner of Terror of Tallahassee. (Photo: Courtesy Mike Kozlenko)
Since the hospital no longer exists, we wanted our documentary to serve as a visual experience for those who cannot walk through the building now. We explored different abandoned locations in Tallahassee and Jacksonville to emulate the decrepit and deteriorated look Sunland once had.As we neared the end of our filming process, we began sorting through the various interviews and footage we had already gathered. As we re-listened to Kurt and Tori's accounts of Sunland, we found that the use of archival footage would complement the storyline well. As we researched further, we found several people had posted videos of them exploring the abandoned building. With these, as well as the inclusion of the news articles we had recently collected at the State Archives of Florida, we had a clear vision for the narrative structure.
TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
Sunland: An eerie rite of passage for Tallahassee teensOnce the final product was fully developed and all of the last minute touches were completed, Sunland had successfully come back to life on screen.
The "Welcome to Sunland" documentary has more than 18,000 plays on Vimeo.
Mike Kozlenko, Rona Akbari, Evan Garcia and Christopher Sintic worked on the "Welcome to Sunland" documentary. Here they interview Kurt Kuersteiner, owner of Terror of Tallahassee. (Photo: Courtesy Mike Kozlenko)
Mike Kozlenko is a junior from Palm Coast, Florida. He creates video content for FSU's social media channels and Veterans Initiative and is a camera operator for Seminole Productions, FSU's in-house sports production company.
Rona Akbari is a junior from Jacksonville, Florida. She is the co-editor-in-chief of The Eggplant, an FSU satire publication, and is minoring in film studies.
Evan Garcia is a Junior from Miami,Florida. He is studying abroad in London this summer for FSU's Documentary Experience program. He is minoring in art history.
ChristopherSintic is a junior from Naples, Florida. He is the photographer for DivvyUp Socks, a Tallahassee-based startup company, and is minoring in film studies and creative writing.
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