Director Statement

Bill Coors: The Will to Live is the telling of a courageous man’s one hundred year journey through life in a dynasty rife with anxiety, depression, and great personal tragedy and how, despite all that life challenged him with, he found the will to live.

Yet thematically for me, this film is about love. The love Bill was denied as a child meant he was unable to give or receive love as a husband – he never learned how. Yet it was love that ultimately saved him. He now wants to share what he spent a lifetime learning, to help others avoid the pitfalls of his own personal tragedies.

I learned so much about myself and about what true love really means through this film. On a personal level, I had fallen deeply in love with a friend that could never sustain, at the same time I was having to process the death of my beloved uncle and soul mate – emotionally devastating on both accounts. I wasn’t equipped to deal with the depth of my feelings until I
absorbed and then applied Bill’s life lessons.

What I learned from Bill during this filmmaking odyssey has literally changed the way I live my life and process love. I am eternally grateful to him for his wisdom, as I was able to finally let my uncle go, and reclaim an important friendship.

I hope similarly, that someone can take a piece of gold from this film and apply it to their lives to help ease their own journey.

Kerry David