Liberty alumnus and aspiring filmmaker creates award-winning short film to raise suicide awareness

Liberty University alumnus Grant Clover (’24) is using his passions for writing and film to tell poignant stories that can have a lasting effect on people’s lives, including his latest project, “Portrait of a Smile,” a short film that focuses on the subject of suicide and what — or who — gets left behind in its wake. The film has garnered attention from around the world, earning 22 festival selections, including the Big Apple Film Festival, and 19 awards, including Best Low-Budget Indie Short at the Cannes World Film Festival and a nomination for Best Drama Short at IndieX Film Fest. 

Clover, who lives in San Diego, Calif., and studied English and writing through Liberty University Online Programs, said the film was inspired by a series of images that came to him out of the blue, drawing on emotions from his own experience with depression and the stories of those around him who had been affected by suicide.

“Portrait of a Smile” follows Liam, a 20-something who deals with the aftermath of his girlfriend, Lily, who took her own life. Unlike other depictions that focus on the character’s struggles with suicidal ideation, the film follows Liam’s story as he reflects on his relationship with his girlfriend and reinterprets the signs of her pain.

[Watch the 23-minute film on YouTube.]

“I’ve struggled with mental health at times, unfortunately know others who have as well to worse extremes, and, through the journey of this film, met so many more who shared aspects of the stories of both of the lead characters,” Clover said. “Looking into some statistics for 18- to 34-year-olds, it’s the second leading cause of death. It’s something I wanted to try to touch in a nuanced way, and I wanted to try to show it from the devastation that it leaves people with afterwards. (Suicide) brings in pain and brokenness for all the people who are left behind.”

Clover said although the film has already won multiple awards, the accolades are secondary to the responses he has received from viewers.

“I’m very grateful and moved by the way it’s touched people,” he said. “I’ve gotten so much feedback from people who have struggled with suicide ideation or had attempts, and a lot of Instagram DMs and emails and so on. I think that’s what has moved me the most; I was wanting people to feel seen by that, and now people are reaching out to say they have.”

Clover said he has always been a writer; by the age of 18, he had already written two novels. In college, he wanted to earn a degree that could help him better understand how to turn his talents into a career, whether in the creative arts or the corporate world.

“What appealed to me about Liberty University was the affordability, the alignment of values I have with the school as a Christian, and how I was able to study while working full time and pursuing filmmaking,” he said. “I did take a screenwriting class through Liberty, which helped with some of the technical stuff of (writing scripts), but it really helped me from a corporate career perspective. I got to see the different career paths of writing and how I could do it in different ways.”

Together with his childhood friend and fellow filmmaker Michael Metzler Jr., he created his first short film, “I Walk with Ghosts,” in 2022, about a man who witnesses the journeys of ghosts, ultimately seeing their past ambitions.

“It was a fun thing; we made it over the course of three to four months with no budget, and just kind of sent it off to some film festivals, thinking ‘We’ll see what happens,’” Clover said. “It kind of exploded and quickly set both me and my co-director up really well for making another short film, which became ‘Portrait of a Smile.’”

Thanks to the quality reception of the first film, Clover and Metzler formed relationships with professionals who have worked on popular Netflix shows and assisted them on “Portrait of a Smile,” including James David Redding III, Emmy-winning sound designer of “The Queen’s Gambit”; Max Davidoff-Grey, score producer of “The Witcher”; and Rudy Pesci, a colorist for “Outer Banks.”