When Jordan Bass and Kenny Glass died in a tragic car crash, 15-year-old filmmaker Jordan Miller began producing public service announcements (PSAs) alongside Bass’s family and a grieving Thousand Oaks community. This inspires him to start Regenerate with his father David Lee Miller and local entrepreneur Mark Barker.

Miller, Barker, and concerned youth visit the Thousand Oaks City Council and present the idea of having teenagers produce PSAs on the subject of driving safety. The City Council grants $10,000 for Jordan Miller to produce PSAs aimed at teenagers about the hazards of the road.

Regenerate enters into a joint venture with the Boys & Girls Club to implement peer-to-peer public service pilot programs and facilities in their Conejo Valley centers. Regenerate teens film Every 15 Minutes programs for the California Highway Patrol, using realistic reenactments of drunk driving crashes to teach high school students about the consequences.

Regenerate produces, films, and co-releases .08 for the Santa Ana Police Department and the California Office of Traffic Safety—our largest production to date. The narrative short screens at Driver Education programs across California and becomes the centerpiece of a traveling safety trailer touring hundreds of cities statewide.

By Youth For Youth PSAs are distributed to nearly 500 cities throughout California and running on Tribune television stations and Oprah's Oxygen Network nationwide. Regenerate hosts a fundraising benefit with comedian Gallagher at Westlake High School to support the organization's growing mission.

As My Suicide moves into its final stretch of post-production, a small core team of dedicated "Archies" holds the project together: animator Arvin Bautista, VFX artist Joe Kastely, cinematographer Angie Hill, PA Toby Auburg, and editors Gabriel Sunday and Jordan Miller. The film's sound is designed and mixed at Sony with John Chalfant and color graded at Digital Jungle with John Scheer. What began as a guerrilla production finds its final, polished form.

My Suicide secures a remarkable executive producer team—Harold Ramis, Jimmy Iovine, Polly Anthony, and Karyn Rachtman. Working with Rachtman and Interscope Records, we secure a soundtrack that exceeds every expectation: Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, The Pixies, MGMT, Joanna Newsom, Dr. Dog, Bright Eyes, The Cinematic Orchestra, Animal Collective, Wolfmother and more, along with an original score by Tim Kasher of Cursive and additional music by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh.

My Suicide premieres at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, where it receives the Crystal Bear for Best Feature Film—the festival's highest honor for films addressing the world of young people. The award places Regenerate alongside some of the most celebrated filmmakers in the world and sends the film onto the international festival circuit, where it wins over 20 festival awards worldwide.

At the Gen Art Film Festival in New York, My Suicide wins the Grand Jury Award, Audience Award for Best Feature, and Stargazer Award for Best Acting. The head of the jury is Ted Sarandos, which launches Regenerate’s relationship with Netflix and keeps My Suicide in front of new audiences for years to come.

The Regenerate team transforms a shuttered 40,000 square foot Borders bookstore in Thousand Oaks into Open Borders—a summer-long community art space, music venue, and gallery. The festival hosts national and international acts across every genre, including Jefferson Starship, Ozomatli, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Ray Manzarek, and Brad Garrett, alongside a curated gallery featuring works by local and national artists—including original art by Daniel Johnston and works from an Ansel Adams collection.

Regenerate produces Hi, How Are You Daniel Johnston?—a 15-minute psychedelic short film made alongside the legendary outsider artist himself. Funded by a Kickstarter campaign—backed by Lana Del Rey and Mac Miller, who both go on to executive produce.

The film premieres at Los Angeles' MAMA Gallery as a living art installation, with Daniel Johnston watching alongside the audience in a recreation of his own 1980s living room. The film goes on to win the Bohemian Rhapsody Award at the Sydney Underground Film Festival.

Nearly a decade after its Berlin premiere, My Suicide steadily builds a viral following. Teenagers discover the film on Tumblr, forming communities around Archie and sharing how the film meets them at their lowest moments and reminds them they are not alone. Netflix takes notice and renews.

Regenerate launches The Mouschi Project on International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance—a sold-out event introducing the Penguin Random House / Philomel picture book The Cat Who Lived with Anne Frank and launching an ongoing program of storytelling events and educational media confronting antisemitism, genocide, and hate. The event featured Zoe Lister-Jones and Jonathan Lipnicki performing the voices from the book.

The Mouschi Project reaches new audiences through virtual events, Barnes & Noble and other bookstore readings, museum exhibitions, senior centers, and places of worship. A special event at Temple Emanuel Beverly Hills features Millie Perkins and Diane Baker, the stars of the Academy Award-winning George Stevens feature The Diary of Anne Frank reading/performing the book and participating in an educational discussion.

My Suicide goes viral again. A new generation discovers the film on TikTok, carrying it to a wider audience than ever before—and Quartz marks the moment by noting that it's a film about teen suicide on Netflix that was actually created to save lives. Academic recognition follows: Dr. Alessandra Seggi's Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: Context, Causes, and Consequences features the film as a significant work in the canon of youth mental health cinema.

My Suicide ranks #10 on Letterboxd’s Most Fans Per Viewer list—a measure of cult devotion that places it among the most deeply loved films in cinema history. The I Am An Archie movement resurfaces with each new viewer who finds it and claims it as their own.

Longtime Regenerate collaborators Sarah Rivka and Adam Laiben lead the organization into a new chapter. Their first order of business: finally bringing Regenerate's archive to audiences in new ways—including a long-awaited physical release of the official My Suicide soundtrack and a wider digital release of Regenerate's media catalog. It's the spark for a full Regenerate reboot, including the launch of this website!