Gone

Kathy Gilleran is a twenty-year veteran police officer from Cortland, New York, a small town that sits in the snow-belt just south of Syracuse. Her son, Aeryn, is a researcher working at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Vienna, and a former Mr. Gay Austria. On October 31st, 2007, Kathy receives a call from the U.N. with distressing news: Aeryn failed to show up for work for two days in a row. Kathy immediately flies overseas to find him. Upon arriving in Vienna, she learns that the police have no interest in an investigation. Detectives tell Kathy that Aeryn had been at the Kaiserbrundl - an exclusive men's sauna in downtown Vienna - on the evening of October 29th when he suffered an extreme and sudden emotional breakdown, fled the sauna wearing only a towel, ran naked through the city streets, and jumped to his death into the Danube Canal. He was presumed dead and his disappearance written off as a suicide. Yet to Kathy, the police explanation makes no sense, especially because no body had been recovered. Alone, short of funds, yet with abundant resilience, Kathy initiates her own painful quest for the truth. As she persists, she encounters overt police intimidation, abuse, and homophobia. But as Kathy hones her instincts as a mother and her skills as a cop, she finds contradictions in the police statements, an aura of a conspiracy, and ultimately discovers her own strength to keep fighting for her son.