Area filmmaker Jarrod Robbins will debut his feature film, “Mad River,” in area theaters this month. The film was shot entirely in and around the Miami Valley, including in Yellow Springs; Robbins, who plays the film’s focal character, is pictured above in the parking lot of the Corner Cone in a pivotal scene. (Film still)
‘Mad River’ film spotlights Miami Valley
- Published: April 13, 2026
In the upcoming feature film “Mad River,” reality doesn’t hold steady for long.
The film, written and directed by area artist Jarrod Robbins, was shot in part in Yellow Springs and will make its debut in several Miami Valley theaters this month.
“Mad River” follows Benjamin Elder, a quiet, solitary man who pursues a romantic connection as his inner life begins to splinter. At its core, Robbins said, the film is an attempt to humanize that unraveling by placing the audience inside it.
“It’s the story of a very lonely man’s descent into insanity,” said Robbins, who plays the main character. “It’s told from the inside out. So it’s not about an insane man — the audience experiences Ben’s fracturing mind along with him.”
Robbins said the film’s structure mirrors its subject, fracturing its narrative by moving between what Ben believes is happening, what he tells others and what may be unfolding just outside his perception. In one sequence, those threads unspool at the same time, forcing the audience to reconcile conflicting versions of the same moment.
“I got to show multiple perspectives simultaneously,” Robbins said. “What’s onscreen is what actually happened, and Ben’s voiceover is him writing about how he perceived what happened.”
“Mad River,” written and directed by area artist Jarrod Robbins aims to take an empathetic view of those living with mental illness by telling its story “from the inside out,” according to the director. (Submitted photo)
That layered approach carried over from the novel of the same name, also written by Robbins. Having written two novels and written and directed several independent films over the last several years, Robbins said he was interested in exploring the possibilities inherent in translating the written narrative to the screen.
“I can show something with a single image that might take me three pages to describe,” he said.
Robbins grew up in Enon, and after attending Wittenberg University to study English, spent years working in Los Angeles and Nashville as an actor. Having returned to the Miami Valley, Robbins said shooting “Mad River” entirely in Ohio communities — Enon, Fairborn, New Carlisle, Urbana, Cedarville and Yellow Springs, including a pivotal scene at the Corner Cone — was due to a desire for the film to feel rooted in the place where he grew up, even if that place was never explicitly named in the film or its source material.
“I never say where it takes place, but it takes place here,” he said.
Robbins said the story was inspired in part by his interactions with a man he came to know while working overnight shifts at a Los Angeles hotel — an experience he said reshaped how he views people living with mental illness.
Robbins said the man, who frequented the hotel where he worked, could be unpredictable — at times “cordial and funny and witty,” and at others “violent and a menace,” throwing objects at guests and lashing out at staff. Rather than avoid him, Robbins said he made a point to listen. Over time, the man shared that he had once been a mechanical engineer with a master’s degree before losing his job, his family and, eventually, his stability. The distance between how the man was perceived and who he was stuck with Robbins.
“We label people as ‘crazy’ or ‘evil’ to keep them at arm’s length,” he said. “It changed my paradigm entirely; I started seeing people differently.”
That shift became the emotional core of “Mad River,” which aims to invite audiences to experience a facet of the complexities of mental illness and, hopefully, empathize with that facet.
“If my little film has even a fraction of that impact on anyone, then it was worth it,” Robbins said.
Local resident and actor Mike Taint, who plays the role of Ben’s father in the film, said working on “Mad River” offered a rare opportunity — both in its subject matter and its process. With a background primarily in stage performance, Taint said the shift to film required a different kind of discipline, with scenes shot out of order and emotional beats needing to be reached quickly.
“You have to turn it on immediately,” he said, noting that unlike stage work, film requires actors to jump between emotional moments out of sequence. “You’re here now, and then, boom — now you’re here three weeks before.”
At the same time, he said working directly with Robbins, who has lived and breathed the world and characters in “Mad River” through multiple iterations, provided unusual clarity.
“This is the god of the ‘Mad River’ universe,” Taint said. “When he gives direction, you don’t have to second-guess that direction.”
Having produced multiple independent films, Robbins said he encountered the expected challenges in working with a limited budget — “We didn’t have unlimited resources,” he said. But having worked for years in logistics, Robbins said he’s good at streamlining processes — and in finding ways around roadblocks when they occur.
“Filmmaking is logistics, if nothing else,” he said.
Robbins stepped in to compose part of the film’s score after a collaborator left the project, and built a full-scale replica of a mobile home interior in a barn outside New Carlisle, where several of the film’s central scenes were shot.
“It takes place in summertime, but we filmed in November — and it was unheated,” Taint said with a laugh. “I had the thickest long underwear on underneath my costume.”
Robbins, on the other hand, was often dressed for summer scenes in shorts and a tank top, despite the cold.
“We ran a blast heater between takes,” Robbins said. “But it was so loud we had to turn it off when the camera was running. We also had a kerosene heater, but it was only good for about three feet.”
“Mad River” will begin its area theatrical run with a private premiere for cast and crew at Little Art Theatre this weekend, followed by public screenings at the Fairborn Phoenix on Friday, April 10, and the State Theatre in Springfield on Friday, April 17. Screenings in Cincinnati are slated for later in the month.
Robbins said he chose the Little Art to debut the film for the more than two dozen area folks who worked on it because he’s always had a soft spot for the village, and hopes to honor the small town that helped him create the visual and thematic world of “Mad River.”
“I want the people of Yellow Springs to know that I care about it,” he said. “I love this town, and I love this theater.”
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